Posted by Vector Viper (205.162.15.2) on July 03, 2003 at 02:20:02:
First of all, kudos to 'Mr Tim' and good luck. I know we all wish
we were the first one-I know I wanted to be. But this thing called life keeps us away from what we want to do sometimes...
My basic new idea is this-to slow down a weight already moving,
and store that energy in a spring to help lift the weight later.
I figure since the forced slowdown can be against gravity, more
energy can be pulled from it. The weight then uses gravity again
to speed back up (by itself) then the assembly gets lifted
quickly back up to be stopped again. It's all in saving energy
forlater; indeed, the spring could store many cycles worth
of energy...
One thing a love about this idea-the faster the weight gets lifted, the less energy is lost to gravity in the lift.At the
same time, this speed also means more energy stored in the spring each cycle!
I have been fighting Working model to test this-the spring/
slowdown part I cannot seem to emulate right...
The rest of the cycle seems promising.
Happy 4th!!
Later,
Viper