Suggestion: build a machine to "rescue" a "child" from a shaft

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I suggest that you challenge the teams to build a device that can "rescue" a "child" [a Barbie-sized doll" from a one-foot-diameter horizontal shaft. The winner is the team whose device rescues the doll placed the deepest in the shaft.

-dk

-- Richard King (king@netapp.com), April 04, 2001

Answers

Hey, I'm thinking great big powerful vaccuum cleaner here: Just suck that kid right to safety! (Why get all grimy and dirty trying to dig the kid out?)

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), April 04, 2001.

For a "shaft" I was thinking of a long piece of concrete pipe. You don't get to dig or drill, but you don't have to.

It's an interesting question whether the end of the pipe is open [which would allow a vacuum cleaner] or closed.

-- Dick King (king@netapp.com), April 04, 2001.


Ok, now you've got me thinking, "Spear Gun!"

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), April 04, 2001.

Ok, how about a "Frog Tongue"? Coat the outer side of a flattened fire hose with contact cement. Let it dry, then roll the hose back up. Dribble some contact cement down the pipe onto the kid's head. Let that dry, then let the hose unroll down inside the pipe until it hits the kid on the head. Drag kid out of pipe head first and celebrate a job well done. (Don't forget to shave the kid's head before you give him back to Mom. No need to arouse any suspicions.)

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), April 04, 2001.

If it's a barbie doll....then a long steel tube hooked up to a propane tank....Send the tube down, fire that tank up, melt the barbie doll.....then send a big rock on the end of a string down, and slam it on the melted plastic which would stick to the rock and hoist it up!.....Oh, you're probably going to tell us that the doll has to be intact now........

-- John Gap (mindthegap64@hotmail.com), April 04, 2001.


Come on, it's a Barbie doll- Let's have some fun: Pour loose gunpowder down the hole until you fill it up to about the doll's feet. Add one lit match and stand WAY back. No matter what happens next, the "kid in a pipe" problem is solved. Ok, so now the problem is DIFFERENT. Whether you blew that doll into the next county or not, the inside of that pipe is going to be a real mess after that. Hence, a new JYW challenge: Clean The Barrel!

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), April 04, 2001.

Actually i stated that the pipe should be _horizontal_, for five reasons

1: it would make the test course easier to build. You only need to buy some pipe and lay it on the ground; you don't need to drill a shaft or make a tower.

2: If you make the pipe transparent the viewers can watch the apparatus at work.

3: If one team's device breaks off, the producers will have a lot easier a time getting the pieces out of a horizontal pipe than a vertical one

4: Parodoxically it makes the project _harder_, because the business end of your apparatus doesn't automatically want to go in the direction of the rescuee like it would in a vertical shaft.

5: I envision the competition in a series of steps: first 20 feet, then 30 feet, and so on. It could be run like an olympic weight lifting competition; you get to say what distance you try, and the team who tries and succeeds at the largest distance in his three attempts wins. Alternatively, you can run it like a high-jump; teams are asked to attempt a certain distance, and if both succeed the distance is increased or if both fail the distance is reduced. In any event, in a vertical shaft the doll wants to go to the bottom and it's hard to make it stop halfway down.

-dk

-- dick king (king@netapp.com), April 04, 2001.


If the child is stuck in a horizontal pipe 1. The child is possibly wedged in and we need to lubricate the sides and place a pizza at one end. 2. Leave the stupid child in the pipe.

Just kidding.

-- Ron Lesseraux (rlesseraux@hotmail.com), April 04, 2001.


Oh, a HORIZONTAL pipe! That's diffeent. No, wait- It isn't: My gunpowder idea would still work! I do like Ron's approach, though: Leave a slice of pizza at one end of the pipe. When the kid looses enough weight, he crawls out to get the pizza. Then again, didn't I mention a spear gun? They work horizontally, don't they? You all realize, of course, that right about now the production company is frantically double checking the team applications- to make sure our names aren't on any of them!

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), April 04, 2001.

A corkscrew on the end of a long pole...

-- Dan Denney (rustrenegades@hotmail.com), April 04, 2001.


CHIP!! i just now got back in the chair from laughing my as of at that spear gun comment!.....that was really funnny! but as for the gun powder....theyve already done cannons!....unless your talking about a different cannon style, given the new style projectile! altho its not a very aerodynamic projectile,its sure to make lotsa noise once fired!

-- tim (milehiharley@hotmail.com), April 04, 2001.

A good idea,, but have to cringe at the idea of machine against tender flesh....... have to really think about that one.. Maybe a net of sorts?????

-- Mitch (reeser@xit.net), April 04, 2001.

You know, it's the "Barbie Doll" part of this that's so annoying. The darn thing is big enough to get stuck, but doesn't actually SEAL the pipe, making some "rescue" options null and void. Now if you stuffed an old Cabbage Patch doll down there, then you'd have something to work with!

-- Chip Haynes (ehaynes@co.pinellas.fl.us), April 05, 2001.

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