Thesis Puzzle Generation

October 16, 2019

Seesaw Variants

Lever Wikipedia Page

By: Wikipedia

Seesaw

General

It’s basically a lever, which has the following definition from wikipedia:
Lever: “a simple machine consisting of a beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or fulcrum A lever is a rigid body capable of rotating on a point on itself”

There are 3 classes of levers:
Class 1:

Fulcrum in the middle
Effort is applied on one side of the fulcrum and the resistance (or load) on the other side
Examples: seesaw, crowbar or a pair of scissors
Mechanical Advantage may be greater than, less than, or equal to 1

Class 2:

Resistance (or load) in the middle
Effort is applied on one side of the resistance and the fulcrum is located on the other side
Examples: a wheelbarrow, a nutcracker, a bottle opener or the brake pedal of a car
Load arm is smaller than the effort arm
Mechanical Advantage > 1
Called: force multiplier lever

Class 3:

Effort in the middle
Resistance (or load) is on one side of the effort and the fulcrum is located on the other side
Examples: a pair of tweezers, a hammer, or the jaw
Effort arm is smaller than the load arm.
Mechanical Advantage < 1
Called: speed multiplier lever

I will first be focusing on alterations of lever class 1 (which seesaw generally falls under) but it is good to keep the other classes in mind as options for later development. The variation of levers (and in turn, seesaws) can be broken down into varying a few factors, which then lead to a few direct varied physics outcomes. I separate them below:

Varied positions of: effort, fulcrum, resistance/load
Lead to varied: force, velocity, final positions

Varieties

The following are just a few takes on overall variations of seesaw and lever setups to provide varied experiences with the same general simple machine.

Maximize force to move heavy object
Move object at varying velocities
Jam seesaw

Maximize force to move heavy object

This follows the same general lever setup each time, with the fulcrum near one end, the effort is applied at this end closest to the fulcrum, and the load is found away at the other end of the lever. The load and fulcrum have little flexibility in this setup, but the effort can be applied in a couple different ways. This can be moving a heavy mass over to it, or dropping a mass onto it from a height.

Move object at varying velocities

There is a velocity of the lever points dependent on the difference in mass at the ends of the lever, which can be used to create a few different effects. A very high velocity can lead to creating a projectile of sorts. Understanding the difference in weights and how they pertain to the overall velocity of the system could be used for timing challenges. Finally, understanding that getting similar forces on each end of the seesaw will provide a slow and steady motion could be used for challenges where the most time possible is needed from the movement of the lever (maybe the seesaw carrying something all the way up resets the seesaw by destroying the object).

Jam seesaw

This approach is just using the seesaw to lift one end, then placing an object in the gap so that further alterations to the seesaw do not allow it to return back down fully to its resting position. This will most likely be used to create ramps of some kind.