Dipper/Descender

The Dipper/Descender

Last year I started a project of projects that we call the Tinker Room. This room has been excellent for teaching kids all sorts of DIY projects, how to use tools effectively, and also team building and thriftiness. While they were having fun with their projects, Landon and I  thought of a few projects of our own. The first of these projects is the dipper/descender. This project is based off of one of Mark Rober’s videos where he takes you on a virtual tour of his Crunchlabs warehouse. In the video he shows a device that he invented that when you grab a rope and walk off of the second story of the warehouse it safely lowers you down. This happens because on the other side of the rope air is being forced to the top of a tube and very slowly let out. In my device the air will instead be sucked in from the bottom and instead of there being one tube, there will be four. This is because I want to make it so that you walk onto a descending platform instead of holding onto a rope and possibly pulling your arm out of its socket. Another thing that is different between the two designs is that mine has a brake mechanism via four seat belts attached to the ceiling so that if you go too fast, you immediately stop. I will also have a valve attached to the air intake so that it can be regulated for more safety.