CONSTRUCTION OF A

COMPLEX AUTOMATED
TIMING (CAT) SYSTEM
MCD 1470 Project Report

Name: Kevin Pohniman

Student ID: 31367100

Lecturer Name: Rupali S Bhamare

Class Number: H03

Tutor Name: Selvarajah Sathiyakumar

Tutorial (Day, Time): Thursday 0930

Executive Summary
Our company is looking to submit a
competitive tender for the implementation
of a Complex Automated Timing (CAT)
system for another company, MC Factory,
who are looking to implement it to remotely
start a dangerous operation to improve
safety in their workplace.
Preliminary and concept designs will be
presented here as well as the final tender.
Cost, construction, and design details will be
compared and included.
This CAT system implements multiple energy
transfers to ensure continuous movement. It
includes a kinetic, electrical, and gravitational
energy transfers to fulfill the design criteria.
Topic: CAT system to be implemented for MC
factory to improve workplace safety.
Approach: To use multiple energy transfers
to ensure continuous movement.
Outcome: A CAT system that can run for 30
seconds continuously and is able to be
remotely activated.
Conclusion: We have successfully completed
the tender and design outline for a CAT
system that runs for 30 seconds and is
remotely activated. IT fulfills all design
criteria detailed in the full report below.
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Statement of Participation
Participation of members:
Chia Yaw Chong: Chia Yaw was very resourceful and helpful. The only time he was not present
was because he had contracted Covid19. Even though he was sick, he still managed to finish the
work allocated to him.

Song Haitian: Haitian provided a very technical analysis and could help on many technical
aspects of the project that we were unable to implement. However, he was absent for most of
the project building.

Joseph N Inguillo: Joseph came to almost every meeting and was a great source of ideas, out of
all his ideas we implemented quite a few of them.

Suren: Suren was our group leader and planned every single group meeting. He was essential
and oversaw the Gannt chart, he came up with many ideas and was present for every meeting
and contributed largely to the construction of the project. He also contributed a lot to the
creation of the logbook.

Self-Evaluation: I oversaw all concept designs and sketches. I drew majority of all the design
concepts and sketches and contributed to the construction of the project. I believe my concept
sketches were crucial in the designing and planning of the project. Like Suren, I was also present
for every single group meeting.

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Contents
Executive summary 1

Statement of Participation 2

1.0 Introduction 4

1.1 Topic of report 4

1.2 Motivation of project 4

1.3 Aim of project 4

1.4 Purpose of report 4

2.0 Design and Construction 5

2.1 Inspirations 5
2.2 Conceptual Sketches and Construction 8

3.0 Performance Analysis 19

3.1 Planning and fixing 19

4.0 Conclusion 20

4.1 Updated Gantt chart 20

5.0 References 21

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1.0 Introduction
1.1 Topic of Report:
Our Companies design tender for a CAT system that lasts for 30 seconds, this system has to
be remotely activated one meter away and must ring a bell at the end of its run.

1.2 Motivation of Project:

Due to the dangerous nature of some machines in the workplace, Factory M aims to
improve the workplace safety by allowing the CAT system to perform dangerous tasks.
Therefore, they have reached out to us to draw up a design for them to implement.

1.2 Aim of Project

The aim of the project is to utilize different kinds of energy transfers to build the CAT
system. It must have at least five different types of energy transfers and be able to run
continuously for 30 seconds without any human interaction. At the end of the run, the CAT
system must ring a bell, to signify that the run has ended.

1.4 Purpose of Report

The purpose of this report is to give a detailed analysis of the CAT system that we designed
and an in depth look as to what energy transfers were included in our final design,
challenges, and obstacles that we faced along the way, and an overall detailed analysis of
the design of the CAT system

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2.0 Design and Construction
2.1 Inspirations

Fig 2.1.1 (https://www.concordia.qld.edu.au/rube-goldberg-machine)

When first planning the initial stages of building the CAT system, our team looked at some
examples as well as many illustrations of what a fully built CAT system could look like, using
the internet, we found some articles and examples that showcased a Rube Goldberg
machine. Each article and example we saw gave us some inspiration as to what we would
end up including and building in the final design. One of the first illustrations we came
across is the one shown above in figure 1. On seeing this illustartion our team became
determined to include a type of pulley system in our design. The main takeaway from the
article was an initial idea on how to make a pulley system in our CAT machine work, to
utilize gravitational potential energy into kinetic energy as a potenital energy transfer we
wanted to implement.

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Fig 2.1.2 (https://www.engineergirl.org/21946/Rube-Goldberg-Machine)
The Figure above is our second look into what a CAT system might include, here we got the
inspiration of using a remote-control car to start the CAT system remotely from one meter
away. We also noted on the types of structures that the article mentioned to implement
some of the concepts used into our own CAT system.

As this example also included the use of pulleys, we were also inspired by this design to
include pulleys in our own design. The way that this Rube Goldberg was constructed would
end up being a big source of inspiration for when we were building our own design, as we
discovered that the use of the pillars in this design was very helpful when implementing our
own designs and constructions into our machine.

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Fig 2.1.3 (https://youtu.be/VpLDfkLBJ0Q)
To see what a final completed product of a large-scale CAT system might look like, our team
referred to this video referenced above many times, both to get ideas, as well as to
understand some concepts being used in the video.

Fig 2.1.4 (https://www.instructables.com/Pinball/)

Our group also had an idea to incorporate some pinball machine concepts into our design of
the CAT system, as a result we also looked up how pinball machines are made as well as
what structures from a pinball machine we could incorporate into our design.

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2.2 Conceptual Sketches and Construction

Fig 2.2.1 spiral Fig 2.2.2 square spiral

The very first part of the CAT system that our team wanted to implement was a spiral. We
wanted to use Gravitational potential energy and convert it into kinetic energy as a ball
goes down a spiral. We planned to have this as the first part of our CAT system, as we
thought it would be the easiest to implement and the easiest to start the system with.
However, when we were designing the initial spiral, we discovered that the ball that was
travelling down the spiral would move too fast, and it would take no time at all to reach the
bottom. As we needed the CAT system to last 30 seconds, we brainstormed on how to
increase the time taken for the ball to go through our spiral. That’s when we though of a
square spiral. Our hope was for the ball to hit each wall of the spiral, and thus killing some
of the momentum that the ball had as it went down each ramp of the spiral system.

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Fig 2.2.3 square spiral model sketch 1 fig 2.2.4 square spiral model sketch 2

Fig 2.2.5 square spiral model sketch 3

This is a sketch a sketch of our very first model of the square spiral, although it worked as
intended, we ultimately decided that it was too small and too fast. We also realized that we
could not start the CAT system effectively with this design. Thus, we decided not to include
this component in the final design and instead replaced this with a larger and more
rectangular square spiral.

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Fig 2.2.6 updated square spiral sketch Fig 2.2.7 updated square spiral
final

Finally in our final design for the square spiral, we took pieces of the earlier designs to make
this final version. Now we used a long rectangular spiral as well as adjusted the gradient of
the slope to further control the speed of the ball going through the spiral. As per our
inspirations, we used pillars to hold up the square spiral. This is designed to be the start of
our CAT system, in which the ball will be pushed remotely.

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Fig 2.2.8 dominoes + car sketch Fig 2.2.9 pulley system

The next part of the CAT system we wanted to implement was a dominoes system that
would be activated by a remote-control car as shown in figure 8. We wanted to use
electrical energy from the car and convert it into kinetic energy as it pushed the dominoes
down. However, we soon realized the inefficiency of having to set up the dominoes every
time we wanted to test the system. Ultimately, we decided that we could utilize the
electrical energy to kinetic energy somewhere else, and so we did not implement this into
our final design.

Next, was the Pulley system that we originally wanted to include since the beginning.
However, this implementation brought about a lot of complicated problems. For one, there
was no space in our existing prototype model to easily include a pulley system. Secondly,
we soon discovered the difficulty in building as well as successfully implementing a pully
system. It was not efficient, and the pulley system would get stuck multiple times.
Furthermore, we could not figure out a solution to bring the pulley all the way to the top.
Therefore, in the end we also did not implement a pulley system into our final design.

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Fig 2.2.10 truck sketch Fig 2.2.11 magnets system sketch

Next, instead of a remote-control car, our team thought instead to have a toy truck deliver
and move the ball. However, the ball ended up being too difficult to take out of the truck,
and it became impossible to implement a toy truck in our design, thus we reverted to
remote control car to push the ball.

Following one of our inspirations, we also tried to utilize magnets, in figure 11 is a sketch of
what a magnetic system could look like. This way we wanted to convert magnetic energy
into kinetic energy, and have the ball move through a magnetic ramp. This way we thought
we could more closely control the ball and it would also be more accurate when it came to
deciding which direction the ball would go. However, the cost of each magnet was too high,
and it put us over our budget very quickly, so in the end, we did not implement this magnet
system.

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Fig 2.2.12 photo of car 1 Fig 2.2.13 photo of car 2

In the end, to remotely start the CAT system from one meter away, we used the remote-
control car in fig 13 and fig 14 top push a ball into the square spiral. This way we could
satisfy the requirements of having it be started remotely and have the CAT system start in
the square spiral like we originally wanted it to.

Fig 2.2.14 photo of track used

Next, we had the ball come onto a track that we assembled from a toy, this would act as the
road for the ball to continue moving in the CAT system and go into the next component of
our design.

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 Fig 2.2.15 photo of pinboard

Upon reaching this point of the CAT system, we realized that the ball was still moving through
the system too fast, therefore we created a pinboard to slow the ball down. The idea was to
have the ball slowly navigate its way through the pins with gravitational potential energy, thus
slowing the process down.

Fig 2.2.16 fifteen seconds model sketch

After implementing the pinboard in fig 17, we finally had a CAT system that could run
continuously for 15 seconds while simultaneously having sufficient energy transfers at this
point.

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Fig 2.2.17 photo of crank lift system 1 Fig 2.2.18 sketch of crank lift system

Now that our team had 15 seconds down, we needed to find a way to bring the ball up to
an optimal height in which we could continue our CAT system. As we had disregarded the
pulley ideas, we had to brainstorm more. It was then that we decided to use a crank lift
system to pull the ball up to a good height. With the same toy set, we managed to put
together a crank system shown in figure 18 and 19 that would have the ball go up if the
gears were being turned. This way we could have kinetic energy turn into gravitational
potential energy.

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Fig 2.2.19 photo of motor wiring Fig 2.2.20 photo of motor 1

Fig 2.2.21 photo of motor 2

As addressed earlier, we could not touch the crank manually while the CAT system was
running, however, we implemented a servo motor that would continuously run for the
duration that the system would be running. This means that this server motor would
continuously turn the gears for the crank lift through out the entire process, thus allowing
the crank lift to work and fulfilling the criteria of having the system be remote controlled.

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 Fig 2.2.22 photo of maze system

Now that we had reached the desired time length to this point, our team took another look
at the pinboard. It was causing some problems as the direction that the ball took while
going through the pin board was too erratic, and we could not safely predict where the ball
was going to come out. As we couldn’t predict the ball, it was difficult to set up a bell that
the ball could ring at the end of the CAT system. Therefore, we changed it into a maze
board instead. The new system would have the ball come into it after going up the crank lift
and still fulfill the original purpose of the pin board which was to slow the ball down.

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Fig 2.2.23 photo of final design

Once our team had all the components ready, the final step was just to assemble them
together as shown in figure 23.

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3.0 Performance Analysis
3.1 Planning and Fixing
There were many problems that arose during the planning phase of the design. Most of the
problems encountered are addressed above in the design and detailing of the report.
However, there were still some other problems that have not been addressed.

Motor problems:
When first constructing the motor to turn the crank, it did not turn 360 degrees and could
only turn 180 degrees, this meant that we could not have the motor constantly spinning to
turn the crank. This was a major problem as our plan depended on the crank being turned
continuously.

How we managed to fix this problem was by rewiring the motor, this took time and
patience, but after a while, our team managed to change the motor such that It ran
continuously and spun 360 degrees like we required it to.

Crank lift problems:

The crank lift was extremely fragile and the part connecting the crank to the lift was
constantly being spun out so the gears would not touch. This caused major problems as the
crank would just suddenly stop moving or become jammed after a while.

How we managed to solve this was by hot gluing the crank to the lift component, ensuring
that the crank stayed in place as the motor was turning it.

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4.0 Conclusion
During the design and construction process our team faced many difficulties. Many
components and parts did not work as intended resulting in us scrapping and redoing the
project many times. Furthermore, one of our group members contracted covid as well, and
was unable to attend some meetings and the midway presentation. All these issues slowed
our development process and caused us to work on the model more slowly. Another
challenge was getting some people to show up and work on the model, as some members
would just be unresponsive and not reply, making the work become a 3-man job. The final
design could have been executed much better and with more finesse if we had more
manpower and we managed our time more effectively, but overall, I am proud of what my
group members and I managed to achieve even with all the difficult obstacles we had to
face along the way. One more thing perhaps our team could have worked on was managing
our budget more effectively. This has taught me many things about group work as well as
managing expectations of people and I am confident I will be able to put these skills and lessons
to use in the future.
(Introduction – Conclusion 2100~ words)

4.1 Updated Gantt chart

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5.0 References
Concordia Lutheran College, T. (2021). Rube Goldberg Machine. [online] Concordia Lutheran
College, Toowoomba. Available at: https://www.concordia.qld.edu.au/rube-goldberg-
machine.

Engineer Girl. (n.d). The Rube Goldberg Machine. Available at:

https://www.engineergirl.org/21946/Rube-Goldberg-Machine

www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Largest Rube Goldberg Machine - Guinness World Records.

[online] Available at: https://youtu.be/VpLDfkLBJ0Q.

seamster (n.d.). Tabletop Pinball. [online] Instructables. Available at:

https://www.instructables.com/Pinball/.

Ideas. 2022. What Is Prototyping? | Adobe XD Ideas. [online] Available at:

https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/process/ui-design/what-is-
prototyping/#:~:text=Prototyping%20is%20a%20process%20in,a%20final%20product%20is
%20developed.

Key work health and safety statistics, Australia 2021 | Safe Work Australia. 2022. Key work
health and safety statistics, Australia 2021 | Safe Work Australia. [ONLINE] Available at:
https://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/resources-and-publications/statistical-reports/key-
work-health-and-safety-statistics-australia-2021.

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