Spintronics Community Forum

Chain construction

Everything Else
#1

So as I unpack my set, I see I’ve got 30 chain links. I see in the book that I need to build the chain, or multiple chains depending on the challenge. I also see that some links are blue and some are black. It’s there any difference besides the color in the blue and black links? Is this covered in a more advanced circuit? Will we have to disassemble the chain frequently? These little links look a bit fragile.

#2

Source for these answers: I’ve gotten through most of Act 1, 2 and the power pack.

  • The blue links are to make visualising chain speed easier, which can become difficult in challenges involving high current. They are otherwise identical. I personally aim to have one of them in every chain.
  • As for chain disassembly: Constantly. Chains need to be fitted pretty exactly to the parts. Thankfully, after well over 10 hours of messing around with them (act 2 is hard!), I’ve yet to break a single chain link. I think they’re Polypropelene, which is roughly comparable to ABS (think Lego) in durability.
1 Like
#3

Great thanks for the information, that’s exactly what I was looking for. Built the first 2 machines with my nearly 6 year old this evening. She even suggested an improvement to include wiring the music machine in what I think is the equivalent of being in parallel. I’ve got a pretty cute video with her talking through how she helped build the platform, assemble the chains, and put it all together.

1 Like
#4

I found the following approach to chain construction helpful as it makes keeping track of chains and bits easy.

Create 2x chains of the following lengths:
10,20,30,40,50
Use a blue link for the end of each chain.
I alternated links “up and down” in each chain.

When I need to make a chain longer i add a short or medium chain in. When I’m done it’s easy to separate again because the blue links also show the beginnings of each length.

10 links is a bit too long as a quantum; I’m often moving things apart to make the chain taught enough. But it’s super easy to make sure I haven’t lost any bits.

Maybe this approach will help other digitally minded people like me!

2 Likes