Hydraulics

From Science Olympiad Student Center Event Wiki

Contents

Articles in this series

Main Article
Descriptions of how to accomplish specific historic tasks and bonuses
A guide to programming with Lego Mindstorms and NXT
DarkSabre's 2005 ETL, illustrated with pictures and comments
The code for DarkSabre's 2005 MPC
DarkSabre's 2004 ETL, illustrated with pictures and comments
Information about acquiring and using Nichrome Wire
Diagrams, information, and uses for relays
Examples of Closed System Hydraulics
Examples of Photoresistor Use

Closed System Hydraulics

Windshield Fluid Pump

This is basically what was used in Dark Sabre's 2005 MPC. The end results will probably look something like this:

As you can see, there is a pump, a small reservoir, a syringe, and a switch.

Build It Day 2009 Example

This is literally what you would be pulling out of your car if you grabbed the tube you pour your washer fluid down and pulled really hard. It comes with either one or two pumps, depending on whether the car had a rear window washer or just the front.
One of the pumps that was removed from the original resevouir, a syringe, and the tubing I had on-hand. When you get around to hooking the tubes up to the pump, run it in the same direction as it did in a car, as that is how it was designed to operate. In this case the inlet was the large diameter hole and the outlet was much smaller. On some pumps they will be the same size.
I forgot to bring any plastic resevouirs for this, but they gave us a free lunch with Sprite cans.
I would not recommend actually submerging the pump as I am/will be here. This one looked pretty well sealed, but that's not what it was deisgned for. Find a tube that you can run from the pump to the resevouir. Though I ran it with the inlet submerged, I didn't cover the contacts, which would be poor form.
The final product after its test run. You see it here hooked up to a 12V battery, but I tested it off of ~10V from AA's and it worked too, just a little slower. To reset it, you can either just push the syringe in with your hand or switch the polarity on the pump and run it in reverse. The system has enough power to push switches, knock objects down, or whatever is called for.