Lever Task

[Jim_R]

Discussion for Lever task.

[Paradox21]

I am very confused about a line in the rules. The first line of point 3 states "No part(s) of a mousetrap will count as simple machines."
This seems very ambiguous, does it mean it doesn't count for the tasks that are obviously simple machine tasks? Like the class 3 lever or the pulley or the wedge or the screw? Or does it mean you can't use mousetraps to count for any transfer? Like the circular to linear motion task?

[lonestar]

I believe that that means that mousetraps can't be used for tasks B through E (wedge, pulley, screw, lever). If you couldn't use mousetraps for any transfer, could you use a mousetrap for the first task? I thought maybe it could meant that the task A mousetrap wouldn't count as a simple machine for another task, but that would already be filed under parallel tasks, wouldn't it. If you want to play it safe, just keep to one mousetrap in your machine.

[Kokonilly]

Can someone explain what a third-class lever actually is? I Googled it, but it didn't make any sense at all to me.

[lonestar]

All levers have a fulcrum, a load, and a force. The force is what you apply. The load is what comes out of it. The fulcrum is the point about which the lever moves. On the traditional class 1 lever most people imagine when you think of a lever, the fulcrum is in the middle, the force is on one point pushing down, and the load is the other side being pushed up.

For the class three lever, tweezers are a good example. The fulcrum is at one end, the force you apply is in the middle, end the resulting action moves the tips at the other end.

Maybe this image will be helpful. The third image is the class 3 lever.

[Kokonilly]

Oh! That makes a lot of sense, actually. I don't know if it's worth enough points to work in, but it seems like it could be easy. Thanks!

[lonestar]

I'm going to be doing the lever temporarily for invitationals until I implement the blocks task later because a part of my WIP blocks task can also be interpreted as a class 3 lever.

[questionguy]

So does the load have to go up or can it go down because images on google showed the load going down, when the force was being applied upwards, how would that work?

[Flavorflav]

So does the load have to go up or can it go down because images on google showed the load going down, when the force was being applied upwards, how would that work?

Direction doesn't matter - the rules just say "cause the next action." They show the load going down b/c the load is usually gravity, but if you want the load to be compressing a spring or something there shouldn't be any problem with pushing it down.

[Antinoch]

In the task list it says 'use a 3rd class lever to cause the next action.' Doesn't that technically mean we can literally drop tweezers into a pulley, or something like that? That's using a third class lever to cause the next action.