Building a Pencil Sharpener

Abstract

By: Lucas Wolfe

The pencil sharpener can sharpen school pencils but it takes so long to get a point. I choose this because I need a pencil sharpener at home and I thought it would be fun to build. My hypothesis is that I can build a cardboard sharpener that will work just as good if not better than a store bought electrical sharpener.

I started by measuring the pieces of cardboard and cutting them out. Then I started to glue the pieces of cardboard together and connect the wiring. Lastly I put a top on it when I was all done with the wiring and the gluing of the cardboard pieces.

I did a test to see which would sharpen faster. The way I did this was by sharpening each pencil and using a stopwatch to time it. In the end I found out that a real sharpener is quicker. The real sharpener was approximately 6 seconds. The Cardboard took approximately 15 seconds.

One of the first things that I learned from this was that before you do or cut anything you should always remember to prewrite the measurements. There were a couple problems I ran into because of some wrong measurements. I also had some confusion with the wiring of the battery holder. The way I could improve this project is by buying a faster motor.