Entrepreneurial Ideas

At the start of the semester I had no idea what I should put on this part of my website. There wasn't a time where I choose to not do a project and to do something else instead. Reflecting back on the year there were a couple of things I made that didn't necessarily replace a classroom activity, but where just done because it needed to be done.

One of these projects was making a foam cutter. When I heard that the original plan was to cut styrofoam with a coping saw I knew that was going to make an awful mess. Come to find out, it did. I knew how to make a foam cutter because I simply understood how basic electronics work. If you take a battery and connect it to itself, eventually it will get hot. I took this simple fact and along with some research, made a foam cutter.

My original design was to use popsicle sticks and a 9V battery. This didn't work because all the batteries were already half dead and they died very quickly. I did research on what volts were and how they related to amps. Now I learned that electricity is like water. Volts is similar to water pressure and amps are similar to volume. For example if you have a hose with very small volume and you have too much pressure your hose will explode. (I may have done this with the wire side also...)

My final design was more of a desktop version. It was made from 2x4 scraps and a piece of copper wire. when I hooked it up the wire heated up fast and was hot enough to melt right through the styrofoam. In the end the cutter had a switch and was done just in time for the class to use it. I also made a bottle opener plinko game that doesn't work well!