We were tasked with creating a thermos that would hold in enough heat over an hour, and be visually appealing to the rest of the class. We made a total of 6 prototypes, and the pictures are included in this post.
Planning, Process and Analysis
Prototype 1.
Prototype 2.
Prototype 3
Prototype 4
Prototype 5
Prototype 6
Final Product
Here is the prototype that we decided to use. This was our last prototype, and we decided that it did a fairly good job of holding in the heat, it didn’t stray over budget, and it had a simplistic but asethically pleasing appearance.
The materials we used were
- 1 3-D printed cup
- 1 Styrofoam cup
- 16 sq inch of aluminum foil
- 1 paper cup
- 1/2 a piece of styrofoam packing
We used aluminum foil to hold in the heat because the energy in the heated water would transformed into the form of steam. According to the law of conservation of energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed but it can be transformed/transferred from one form of energy to another. By trapping in the heat, we ensured that we would not lose any energy. We also used the 3-D printed cup because the conductivity was a very low value, and would keep the heat in. Thermal energy is based on the speed and energy of molecules with vibrational, rotational or translational energy. By keeping the amount of heat able to leave the thermos low, we ensured that our thermal energy was a high value that would be consistent. We thought since we would get a discount for the 3-D printed cup and it look clean and simple that we would use that and put a styrofoam cup on the inside of the 3-D printed cup. So, the 3-D printed cup acted as a shield to keep the heat in if any heat escapes from the styrofoam cup. For the lid we decided to use tinfoil, styrofoam, and the top of a paper cup. We found that when we only used tinfoil, the material got hot quickly so, we needed an insulator to put in-between the water and the tinfoil. We put the styrofoam at the lower part of the paper cup and then wrapped the cup and styrofoam in tinfoil for an extra lay of protection. It also helped to keep the styrofoam in place so, that we didn’t have to spend money on tape.
In this project, I took the role of the recorder down. So, while my group members preformed each experiment, I wrote down what temperature the water started at, how long we were measuring it for, how much it dropped and what the end temperature was. I also developed the prototype drawings and I kept track of our budget and designed the drawings.