Plunger

[saisree]

Hi everyone,
Where can my partner and I get a plunger for our machine? We have completed pretty much everything for our device but we don't know where exactly we can find an adequate plunger. I looked around in the Science Olympiad store, but I couldn't find one. There were a few on Amazon but I didn't know whether they were allowed for Mission Possible. I would appreciate some links where I could buy usable plungers.
Thanks,
saisree

[SPP SciO]

Two commercially available, inexpensive solutions: 1st, and I'm not sure exactly what it's called, but the two-part plastic thing that holds rolls of toilet paper. You can get them at a dollar store or hardware store. It's basically two plastic cylinders and a spring. With minimal modifications, it's a functional starting mechanism.

Or, ask your teacher if there are any extra spring scales available. For whatever reason, our school has far more than will ever be used by students, and we dissected a few for parts. Again, minimal modifications.

If you'd rather build one from scratch, I could picture one made from a wooden dowel, a couple washers, and a spring.

[reed303]

While you can find actual pinball machine plungers on Ebay, you would be better off to make your own as earlier poster said. We made ours from a dowel, a spring, and 2 small wood blocks. Any hardware store will have a selection of springs to try.

[goodcheer]

Our kids are using a piece of half inch diameter plastic water pipe (cpvc) with a spring large enough to slide over the pipe (such as the toilet paper spring above). The spring has to be secured to the pipe at one end with a screw and washer (drill a small hole in the pipe and drive in a small screw with washer over the spring). Then, when you pull the pipe back with the spring held in place, you have a plunger. Seems like there might be some toy guns that have plungers also (ones where you pull back a plunger and it locks in place until you pull the trigger and shoot the ammo like a dart).