Online Homeschooling And The Secret To Lifting 100 Pounds. Using one hand and some pulleys
If online homeschooling is your choice, I have some great activities that you will love. Here is one of those activities where I will teach you how to build your own pulley.
Pulley hangar: Make a cut in the center of the base of a wire coat rack (imagine cutting the base of a triangle). Now take a spool of wooden thread and pass a free end of the freshly cut suspension wire through it (from left to right) and bend the free end. Now take the other free end and similarly pass it through the other side (from right to left) and bend the free end. Make sure the spool can spin freely. You have now built a pulley.
Online homeschooling gives you the option to work at your own pace, so you should have a little fun with your pulley. Attach the hanger to a ceiling hook. Take a basket and tie a strong rope to its handle. Pass the rope over the pulley and pull the free end of the rope to see if the pulley works. Feel free to put different weights in the basket and try lifting the basket by pulling on the free end of the rope.
Triple pulley system: You can build this pulley system in your backyard or under your treehouse to bring food and other things to the treehouse. Place two pulleys one on top of the other on the tree branch. Attach another pulley with an S-hook to the basket handle. Now take a rope and tie one end to the handle of the basket. Pass this rope over the upper pulley and then through the basket pulley and then over the lower pulley. Tie the free end to a pipe to make a handle.
Has the number of pulleys made a difference? to the effort you must put in to pull an object? Try pulling a weight with a single pulley system. Now pull the same weight on your triple pulley system. Do you have to use the same force?
You must have noticed that as the number of pulleys increases, less force is needed to pull the same weight. Does this teach you anything about how to use multiple pulleys?
In the previous experiment I have used three pulleys. This means that the weight is distributed between the three pulleys and therefore it will only take a third of the effort to pull the weight. If the object to be lifted weighs 90 pounds, you must apply a force equal to 30 pounds to lift the object.
This is called mechanical advantage. or leverage. Mechanical advantage can be determined by counting the number of parts the strings are divided into (not counting the part of the string you are pulling). What Does Your Online Homeschooling Curriculum Teach You About Mechanical Advantage? Do you have access to animations to demonstrate the same?
If a pulley system has four pulleys the rope is divided into four parts (excluding the part you are holding). This means that the weight of an object to be thrown is divided into four parts. Therefore, if you want to lift an object that weighs 100 pounds, you will need an effort equivalent to only 25 pounds (100 ÷ 4). In conclusion, if you want to lift 100 pounds with one hand, you will need 4 pulleys. Isn’t this interesting?
Get your free copy of the “Homeschooling Parent’s Guide to Teaching Science,” which is full of great science experiments and activities by clicking the link below.