Circular to Linear Task

[Flavorflav]

I put this in as a clarification but I haven't heard back yet and I am burning to get an opinion, so I will ask for an advisory opinion from you all: does a device have to complete a full rotation to be considered circular motion? Tmanneo asked this back in September, but I think I was the only one who weighed in. My feeling is that anything swinging around a pivot for any distance would count. What do you think?

[JTMess]

We are using two different objects like a motor turning in circular motion in order to pull a mass in linear motion.

[Primate]

I put this in as a clarification but I haven't heard back yet and I am burning to get an opinion, so I will ask for an advisory opinion from you all: does a device have to complete a full rotation to be considered circular motion? Tmanneo asked this back in September, but I think I was the only one who weighed in. My feeling is that anything swinging around a pivot for any distance would count. What do you think?

I think the duck test works well here. When you look at the device, you should be able to go "oh wow, circular to linear!" without having to think about it.

I still highly recommend using a winch. No gearing, you'll make dozens of rotations, and it's clearly circular to linear.

[missionimpossible]

Soooo....
A fan knocking over a piece of wood works...

[Flavorflav]

Yeah, but that's the moving air task. You going to do it twice?

[missionimpossible]

You can't combine tasks?
Okay what about a lever moving in an arc (150 degrees), turning on a switch?

[Gooblah]

Originally my team was planning on running a simple Lego piston, but that just seems iffy right now.

Regardless, we need an alternative. The way I interpreted the task was conversion of angular velocity to linear velocity - so a piston would be the rotating piece causing the arm to move forwards and backwards. A ball rolling down a track seems a bit too simple, though - it's just gravity weighing it downwards, no real conversion since technically it wouldn't need to be spinning in the first place to have that linear motion. I guess another idea would be using a motor to raise a mass on a loop? The circular motion of the loop would translate to the linear motion of the mass, although I really dislike having to use motors. Just a pet peeve of mine. Any other suggestions?

[Primate]

Originally my team was planning on running a simple Lego piston, but that just seems iffy right now.

Regardless, we need an alternative. The way I interpreted the task was conversion of angular velocity to linear velocity - so a piston would be the rotating piece causing the arm to move forwards and backwards. A ball rolling down a track seems a bit too simple, though - it's just gravity weighing it downwards, no real conversion since technically it wouldn't need to be spinning in the first place to have that linear motion. I guess another idea would be using a motor to raise a mass on a loop? The circular motion of the loop would translate to the linear motion of the mass, although I really dislike having to use motors. Just a pet peeve of mine. Any other suggestions?

You don't even need the mass to be on a loop. Just have the motor wind up the string, and you'll be converting circular motion of the shaft into linear motion of the mass. (How were you planning on running a piston without a motor?)

@missionimpossible, no, you can't combine tasks. It's clearly listed somewhere, along with the restriction on parallel tasks.

[NikitaB]

What about using a motor to turn a disc with a stick spanning the radius? The disc turns while the stick pushes a ball along a ramp, converting linear to circular.

[questionguy]

What about using a motor to turn a disc with a stick spanning the radius? The disc turns while the stick pushes a ball along a ramp, converting linear to circular.

I think you have to convert circular to linear, not the other way around.