Carroll Conversations: The Letter Taker

Zach was given the assignment for a school project to build something that involved a simple machine (i.e., levers, gears, wheel & axle, screws, inclined plane, pulleys, wedge). It didn't have to include all of these concepts, just 1. However, if you know Zachary he never wants to do something the simple way. He wanted to use as many of these simple machines as possible. On top of having to have a simple machine involved, the invention had to do something useful.

Zachary chose to make a robot called, "The Letter Taker." He had to write a speech to present to his class. I didn't get a copy of his note cards before he had to turn them in, but I'll try and add them when we get them back from his teacher.

The most entertaining part of the speech was his explanation of the usefulness of "The Letter Taker." It went something like, "you wake up and realize you're too tired to go to school that morning, and your arms are too tired too, so you write a note and put it in the Letter Taker's hand and it will deliver the note to your mom for you."

Zach's original plan was for the Letter Taker to be remote controlled. We explained the need for making this a "simple" machine, but he still wanted it to be able to run 'hands free'. He called Grandpa Carroll for some ideas. He took him to a hobby shop and bought a motor kit and brought it home. When we opened the box we found that the instructions were in Chinese, and only in Chinese. Grandpa handed the project off to me (thanks =).

Zach and I did manage to put together this motor which hooked up to a rotating axle and used gears to make it rotate. We then jimmy-rigged some wheels onto the axle and took one of his partly broken cars and used those wheels for the front wheels. Jon helped screw the motor and front wheels onto a wood block. I bought a battery case and toggle switch and we soldered wires to the toggle switch and then hooked the wires from the motor to the battery. Zach learned a lot about polarity and which way the current had to run to make the wheels move forward or backward.

The next step was to make a body for this robot and decorate it. The final touch was adding clothespins (levers) for the robot's hands, which would hold the "letter" Zach would pass to his teacher during his demonstration, thus fulfilling the name of his creation, "The Letter Taker."