Gr 8 TERM 1 01-12 March 2021

WEEK 6

Revision: mechanical advantage. Well-designed machines

give “mechanical advantage”.
1-12
March •All complex machinery consists of combinations of simple mechanisms.
- The wedge: e.g. inclined plane or ramp, door wedge, knife blade, etc.
- The wheel and axle: e.g. from bicycle to shopping trolley.

• Gears: (wheels with wedges for teeth)

- Show how meshing of two spur gears causes counter-rotation.
- Show how introducing an idler gear between two spur gears
synchronises rotation of the driver and driven gears.

Gear ratios:
Show how different sized gears result in a change in the velocity ratio as well as
an ‘opposite’ change in the force ratio – if force increases, speed decreases,
and vice versa.
• Mechanisms that change the direction of movement:
- The Cam: show how a cam converts rotary motion into reciprocating
motion. Compare an eccentric wheel and a snail cam.
- The Crank: an adaptation of a second-class lever. Show how a crank
converts rotary motion into reciprocating motion.
• Graphic skills: Learners draw an artist’s impression of one of each of the
above mechanisms (cam and crank) in their books using colour, shading and
texture.

Teacher to revise and explain:

Mechanical advantage, inclined planes, wheel and axle, mechanisms that change the direction
of movement, gears, cranks and cams.

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 MECHANICAL SYSTEMS AND CONTROL

 Words to talk about hills and roads going upwards

 When a road is flat, you say that it is level.
 When a road goes up or down, you say that it has a slope, a gradient, or an incline.
When a road goes slightly upwards, you say it has a gentle incline.
 When a road rises more quickly, you say that it has a moderate incline.
 When a road rises up sharply, you say that it has a steep incline.

MECHANICAL ADVANTAGE

In Grade 7 you learnt how levers, pulleys and cranks can help you to move things. To get an
object to move, you need to push it or pull it. A push or pull is called a force. That force will
make the object move over a distance. Force and distance are the two important things that are
changed by a mechanism. Some mechanisms change a small input force over a large distance
into a large output force over a small distance. You can say that the mechanisms have a
mechanical advantage, but a distance disadvantage. You get a mechanical advantage when a
machine makes it easier to lift or move something. Other mechanisms change a large input
force over a small distance, into a small output force over a large distance. You can say that the
mechanisms have a mechanical disadvantage, but a distance advantage. You get a distance
advantage when a machine makes something move further. Whenever you look to see how a
mechanism works, try to understand what is happening to the input force and the output force.
Also try to understand what is happening to the input distance and the output distance. A
distance advantage is often also a speed advantage, because if something moves further in the
same time, it also moves faster.

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INCLINED PLANES

A road that goes up steeply can be called an inclined plane. The roof of a house that goes up at
an angle is also an inclined plane.

HELP A BOY IN A WHEELCHAIR

When people design buildings with steps, they

also have to think about old people or people in
wheelchairs. These people will struggle to get
up steps, like the boy in the wheelchair in
Figure 5.

To help the boy, you could build a ramp to

make a smooth path between the low place on
the ground and the higher place. Two different
designs of a ramp are shown below.

ANSWER THE FOLLOW QUESTIONS IN YOUR WORKBOOK

1. Which design will be the easiest for the boy to get from the ground to the higher place,
and why? Hint: Read the part on “Words to talk about hills and roads going upwards” on
page 49.
2. Will the boy travel the same distance up both ramps A and B, or will he travel a longer
distance on one of the ramps? If yes, which one?
3. Will the force with which the boy has to turn the wheels be the same on both ramps, or
will it be greater on one of the ramps? If yes, which one?
4. Use the following words to write a few sentences to explain why it is easier for the boy to
go up the one ramp than the other: input force, output force, input distance, and output
distance.
5. Which ramp gives the boy the greatest mechanical advantage?

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THE WHEEL AND AXLE

What is special about wheels? They can roll over a surface to cover a distance, just like a ball.
When a wheel on the ground turns, it moves forward in a specific direction. So a wheel changes
a turning or rotational movement into a straight or linear movement. Without wheels, the only
way to move objects over the ground or another surface would be to drag them across the
surface. Perhaps you have moved a heavy cupboard or even a fridge or a stove over a floor. It
is hard work! But if there were wheels underneath the heavy object, it would be much easier to
move it, because the friction would be less.

Imagine you are moving a heavy cupboard. Fortunately, the cupboard stands on wheels, like a

When you push the cupboard, the wheels turn and the cupboard moves forward. So your linear
pushing movement is changed into the rotational movement of the wheels, which is changed
into the linear movement of the cupboard. This is why you say that a wheel is a mechanism that
changes the direction of movement. It changes the movement from linear movement, to
rotational movement, and back into linear movement.

The wheels under the cupboard were freely turning, like the front wheel of a bicycle. You call
that a free-running wheel. The back wheel of a bicycle does not turn freely. It turns because the
chain is pulling the gear on the back wheel to turn. You call that a driven wheel.

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A wheel that is driven gives a distance
advantage. The drawings on the right
and below use a bicycle as an
example to explain this. The chain
goes around a gear on the back wheel.
That gear has a circumference of 30
cm. So if the chain pulls forward by 30
cm, then the gear will rotate once.

• When the gear rotates once, the

wheel rotates once.
• The wheel has a circumference of
207 cm. If the wheel rotates once,
the bicycles moves forward by 207
cm.
• Therefore, when you pull the chain
forward by 30 cm, the bicycle
moves forward by 207 cm. That is why a driven wheel gives a distance advantage.

For a wheel to turn, it has to turn around something that is at the centre of it. This is called the
axle. An axle is for a wheel what a pivot or fulcrum is for a lever. The inside of the wheel rubs on
the axle, so there is some friction that tries to stop the wheel from turning. This friction is very
small because:

• The distance moved at the outside of the wheel is

greater than the distance moved at the axle. You can
see this on Figure 14, where the distance moved at the
outside of the wheel is shown in blue, and the distance
moved at the axle is shown in red. For the same
forwards movement, a bigger wheel will give a smaller
movement at the axle. Therefore, big wheels give less
rubbing or friction at the axle.
• Most wheels have a very smooth oiled surface or
bearings between the axle and the wheel, to reduce the
friction even more.

CLASS DISCUSSION

1. Why are some wheels small and others big? Think about the advantages and
disadvantages of small wheels and of big wheels. Also think about the weight and
cost of the wheels.
2. A motor car, a 4 × 4 bakkie, a shopping trolley, and a skateboard each have four
wheels. For each one of these examples, which wheels are driven and which are
free-running?

GEARS

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The diagram below shows two levers that are mounted on vertical supports. The levers can turn
around axles that are shown with round black dots.

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION IN YOUR

WORKBOOK

1. If you push the black end of the lever on the left down, (a)
in what direction will the red end of the lever move, and
(b) in what direction will the blue end of the lever on the
right move?
2. If you push the black end of the lever on the left down,
will the lever turn clockwise like this, or anti-clockwise
like this?
3. If you turn the lever on the left anti-clockwise, in which
direction will the lever on the right turn?

Gears are very similar to levers. Look at the drawings below.

Imagine you attach many levers to a round disc as in drawing A.
If you then add material to make the ends of the levers into the
shapes of gear teeth, you will have a gear, as shown by drawing B. The type of gear shown in
drawing C is called a spur gear.

4. The red gear below is turned anti-clockwise, until the tooth with the black dot reaches the
arrow.
a. Draw another arrow to show where the tooth with the blue dot will be when the black
dot reaches the arrow.
b. Draw a small cross to show where the red dot will be when the black dot reaches the
arrow.

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 5. In what direction will the yellow gear turn, when the red gear is turned anti-clockwise?
6. (a) In what direction must the small gear on the right be turned so that the blue dot will
move downwards when you start to turn?
(b) If the small gear is turned clockwise until the red dot is back at the yellow arrow again,
where will the blue dot on the big gear be?
(c) If you turn the small gear by hand, will the big gear turn faster or slower than the small
gear? Explain your answer.

IDLER GEARS

The drawing below shows a set of three gears. The gear in the middle is called an idler gear. Its
purpose is to make the driven gear turn in the same direction than the driver gear.

Look at the system of gears in Figure 21. If the gear on the left is the driver gear, will the driven
gear turn faster or slower than the driver, or will it turn at the same speed?

When an idler gear is smaller than the other gears, as for example in Figure 21, then it is made
of harder material than the other gears. This is because the idler gear will rotate more times
than the other gears. Every time a gear turns, the metal rubs against the metal of the other
gears, and a little bit of the metal rubs away. Have a look at the soles of your shoes. The same
thing happens to them.

GEAR RATIOS

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Look at the gears on the right. The big gear is the input gear, and the small gear is the output
gear. Each gear is fixed to an axle, and the axle drives a fan. The speed with which the fan
turns is called the rotational speed of the axle.

(a) Will the fan on the big

gear rotate faster or slower than the fan on the small gear, or will it rotate equally fast?

(b) Will the force with which you turn the axle of the big input gear be smaller or bigger than the
turning force on the axle of the small output gear?

MECHANISMS THAT CHANGE THE DIRECTION OF MOVEMENT

THE CRANK-AND-SLIDER MECHANISM

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There, a crank was used to turn a wheel, called a spool, on which rope was rolled up. The crank
was part of a bigger mechanism that is called a crank-and-spool mechanism or a winch. The
crank can be turned one way to pull in the rope, and the other way to let it out.

When a crank is part of a winch, it changes a big

rotational movement with a small force into a small
rotational movement with a big force.

The longer the crank arm is, the more mechanical

advantage it gives. Some winches also use gears to
give an even bigger mechanical advantage.

THE CAM-AND-FOLLOWER MECHANISM

A cam is a wheel that is not round, or it is a round wheel that turns around an axle that is not at
the centre of the wheel. A cam is used with a follower. The rotational movement of the cam is
changed into the reciprocating movement of the follower. The follower is in a sleeve, so that it
can move in one direction only. A cam is driven by an axle, so that when the axle rotates, the
cam rotates. When the cam rotates, the follower slides on the cam. The position of the follower
depends on the angle at which the cam is rotated. A cam-and-follower changes the rotating
movement of the cam into the reciprocating movement of the follower.

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INVESTIGATE

Figure 10 shows how the rotation of a cam changes the position of a valve in an engine. The
figure continues on the next page. Study this figure carefully before you answer the following
questions.

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS IN YOUR WORKBOOK

1. Copy and complete the table above to show how far the valve is open at different
positions of the cam in Figure 10. Measure the distance that the valve is open.
2. Which of the pictures above show the valve at its highest position?
3. Which picture shows the valve at its lowest position?

Figure 10 above shows different positions of a cam and a valve as the cam is rotating. This is
the way that the valves in most engines are opened and closed at the correct times.

A cam can convert rotational to reciprocal movement, but not the other way round.

A CAR ENGINE: USING A CRANKSHAFT AND CAMSHAFT

The different steps in the rotation of a four-stroke petrol engine Figure 14 shows how a one-
cylinder petrol engine works. In a car engine, the cams are parts of camshafts that turn as the
engine turns. You do not need to understand everything about the engine in Figure 14, as long
as you can see that it is important that the inlet and outlet valves open and close at the correct
times.

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DRAW A ENGINE CRANKSHAFT

Make a three-dimensional artistic drawing of the crankshaft of a one-cylinder engine. Use

shading to make it more realistic. First make a rough drawing, before you make your final neat
drawing. Hint: REMEMBER how you can use shading to make something look round.

ACTIVITY 3

QUESTIONS TO COMPLETE (Homework/ classwork)

ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS

1. Explain what you understand by the term ‘mechanical advantage’.

2. What is a simple mechanism?

3. Name the six (6) simple machines (mechanisms).

4. Identify the different types of cams

Type of cam:
Type of cam: Type of cam: Type of cam:

5. Complete:
a. Rotary Cams change ……………. motion into ……………. (backward and forwards or
up-and-down) motion.

6. Explain in your own words the difference between an eccentric wheel and a snail cam.

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7. Study the pictures of the two cams below and answer the questions that follow.

7.1 Identify the type of cams below

A: Pear-shaped cams B: Snail-shaped cam

7.2 Explain the difference between them.

8. Give an example of how a wedge would be useful to a 21st century person living today.

9. The following figure shows a movable toy. Draw a system diagram to explain how the toy
works.

INPUT PROCESS OUTPUT

10. An inclined plane can be used in many ways to make a job easier as an excellent example
of the usage of an inclined plane is shown in the photo on the right.

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11. Explain two advantages of using an inclined plane in constructing a pyramid.

12. The diagrams show different trials Abdul carried out with carts having different-sized
wheels. He started them from different heights. The blocks he put into them were of
equal mass. He wants to test this idea: The heavier the cart is the greater its speed at the
bottom of the ramp

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