The Human Hamster Wheel

I got a little behind on the blog with all the end of semester busy-ness, but I will soon be caught up again.  This building day we had quite a few tasks to complete: finish attaching all the braces, fix the metal base, fix the wooden base, paint both the wheel and the base, attach wire mesh to the inside of the wheel, and attach temporary axels.

First thing we had to get the rest of the braces on the rungs attached.  Last time we ran out of screws, so Winncy and Cat finished up today.

While they worked on that Yanpainq worked on fixing the metal frame.  The corner pieces were a bit too long and we were worried about someone tripping over them, so he cut two of them in half and reattached the pieces to the four corners.

We also had a slight problem with the wooden base.  Last time we accidentally attached one of the side supports so that the wooden posts didn’t quite fit right in the metal frame.  We wanted to remove the old side support and reattach a new one making sure that the post fit better.  The point of the metal frame was to absorb the pressure from the wooden posts when the wheel was in use, but it couldn’t do that if it didn’t fit quite right.  First we removed the old side support.  We measured, drilled the holes, and attached the new side support just like before.  We also cut off the edges with the Saws-all and sanded it smooth.

We spent a lot of our time painting.  First we painted a primer onto the metal parts on both the base on the wheel.  Then we got to the fun part of painting.  We decided to paint the base a kind of multi-colored chaos pattern, which was quite a bit of fun to paint.  Ready, set, go!!!!

After a lot of paint wars and chaotic painting and breathing in of paint fumes, it looked kind of like this:

The professors stayed safely out of the paint fumes and off to the side to take pictures.

Fortunately when we moved on to the hamster wheel, we painted it in a much more organized fashion.

In case you can’t tell, we are kind of going with a rainbow theme. =)

After we finished painting the wheel, we had to attach the mesh around the inside.  This is to prevent people from getting their foot caught between the slats and is especially important if we let children run on it.  After a lot of team effort, we finally got the mesh attached.  Unfortunately though, we ended up with a little gap in the mesh that has to be fixed later.

Then all we had left to do was to attach some temporary axels.  We had metal ones fabricated, but we wanted to attach wooden axels to hold the wheel in the right shape.  It tends to sag under its own weight, so we had to force it into a circular shape to fit in the 76 inch axel pieces.  Then Dr. Sheldon got to use his nail gun (now that it is working again) to attach the axels.

Of course we had to paint those axels too, so that they didn’t feel left out and then we touched up the paint on the wheel a little bit.  Finally, we posed for a picture in which we tried to fit as many people as possible into the wheel.

Today’s workers were Cat Khoo, Winncy Cheung, Yanpainq Oo, Reeju Pokharel, Nema Marjana, Kacey Meaker, Tatiana Toteva, and Peter Sheldon.  Thanks to everyone who helped today.  Almost done!!!!

Dr. Sheldon and I went shopping again for one of the last hamster wheel builds.  First we returned some of the little metal plates that we were going to use to brace the inside corners before we decided to use the T-braces and the angle braces instead.  Then we had to get another 2″ x 6″ to fix the one brace on the base that was kind of messed up.  And finally, my favorite part, we got to pick out paint so that we can paint it tomorrow.  I decided that we should paint it rainbow colors, because it will look really cool when it spins.  And also, the colors have to do with light and we are comparing it to solar power, so it seemed related.  Rainbows are also just pretty and physics-y, so it seemed like a good idea to me.  We picked out six colors for the rainbow and got some primer for the metal parts.  I hope it is a nice day tomorrow, because we are going to be painting for a while.  I’m really excited!!!!

I almost forgot that we applied for a grant proposal to support the building of the hamster wheel.  We applied for the Sigma Pi Sigma Undergraduate Research Award.  According to the website, “The Sigma Pi Sigma Undergraduate Research Award program provides, on the basis of an annual competition among the active Chapters, calendar year grants to support local Chapter activities that are deemed imaginative and likely to contribute to the strengthening of the SPS program.”  It was kind of stressful getting the grant proposal written out, because we were also doing one for the Science Day at the same time.  It’s kind of hard, because you want to write the best grant possible, but it was kind of hard to know what they are looking for and if our project is going to get funded or not.  But hopefully we will get funded and if we don’t, it will still be good experience for me to have worked on it.  Cross your fingers. =)