Mech Days is an organized event by the University of Waterloo for mechanical engineering students in their first year. It consists of a team challenge (usually of four) that tackle a problem statement with their group peers. The duration of this event is a day and a half.
That year, the problem statement presented to the cohort was to create a system that would use precisely only one mass of 200g to displace at least 2 Ping-Pong balls 16 cm horizontally and 20 cm vertically, solely using a Tetrix kit, and other materials that we can get a hold of at home.
My team and I worked on a conveyor belt that would use mass to rotate around two axles. The ping pong balls would then be picked up using adhesive material. Where the pullie and mass lie, a gear ratio was used to increase rotations of the belt.
The team managened to displace a ping pong ball. Throughout the process the gear ratios and ball picking mechanism was changed. A few of the challenges we faced taught us a lot about mechanical concepts, notability of the greater efficiency attributed to a toothed belt vs. our friction-based belt or the feeding mechanism that used double sided tape which eventually lost it's adhesive properties after numerous uses.