How To Improve The Hook Attachment Of Your Boomilever
what is a boomilever
A boomilever is model cantilever that is designed to hold 15kg. Many science and engineering competitions, such as Science Olympiad, host boomilever competitions to help teach basic physic concepts to students.
In this post, we will discuss how you can improve the hook attachment of your boomilever.
improving the hook attachment
size
If you want to increase the strength of your boomilver’s hook attachment, then there are some aspects of its size that need to be optimized.
Firstly, you want to reduce the length of the hook attachment. You can test this out right now. Take a long stick of balsa wood and try to bend it, easy right. Now break that piece of wood in half an try to bend it; its easy to bend but harder to do in comparison to the full length stick.
For the width and depth of the hook attachment, you want to increase their dimensions because they will increase the amount of strength your hook attachment has to oppose bending.
wood density
Another concept to consider is wood density. With more dense wood, the overall strength of the wood will increase, but at the cost of more weight. If you are planning to make your hook attachment smaller, then using high density wood won’t hurt your weight too much.
Another option is to use a different type of wood completely. Rather than searching for super high density balsa wood, you could use some bass wood to achieve the same results.
grain direction
Grain direction is the direction that those thin lines on your wood go. When you make your hook attachment, you want the grain direction to be perpendicular to the hook on testing apparatus. When you have the grain parallel to the hook, there is a higher chase of your piece splitting, so you want to make sure that the grain on your hook attachment is perpendicular to the hook.
lamination
Lamination is the concept where you place multiple pieces of wood on top of each other to improve strength. For example, plywood is made with multiple sheets of wood to create extremely strong sheets of wood. However, the individual plywood sheets are not so strong on their own.
This same concept applies to hook attachments. If you want to increase the strength of your hook attachment, you should try to laminate it with other pieces of wood.