Investigation of ways to make toy projectiles fly farther, straighter, and safer by adopting memory foam

The purpose of this research has been to improve the performances of toy projectiles by modifying their design. While the developed product is required to comply with all applicable safety specifications and regulations, it is also required to satisfy customers. Through brainstorming, over 30 designs of projectile were generated, 10 models distilled from brainstorming models were prototyped and evaluated through the performance tests. The performance tests involve distance evaluation, accuracy evaluation, safety evaluation, and supplementary evaluation. The distance evaluation is for verifying the performance of flying farther. This test measures flying distance, and initial velocity through high speed imaging, and calculates distance per kinetic energy, and drag coefficient. The accuracy evaluation indicates how accurately the each projectile model is able to fly to the aim, and it is performed by calculating the variance of the lengths between the center of the dart board and the marks which projectiles made when they bumped into the dart board. The safety evaluation is for confirming the compliance of developed models with the safety standard and it achieved with calculating the kinetic energy density. The supplementary evaluation is for comparing the production error and performing error. Through the analysis of performance tests' results, the models were modified and refined from the best performance model.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Sunyoung, S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• David Wallace.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/57676

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/57676