square965

Sorry for the late response guys, helping out with school science fair has been keeping me busy. The way it works is the people have a predetermined amount of time in the form of two beeps from a computer or stopwatch. I don't know what this amount of time will be besides it being from 10-300 seconds. I have to estimate the amount of time between the two beeps to the nearest tenths place using my device. edit: oh and human interaction IS allowed throughout.

Hi, I am taking part in a science competition in which I must design a device that can measure time. I must measure 5 different lengths of time that range from anywhere from 10 to 300 seconds. The catch is that I am not allowed to use any electricity. I have a few ideas that I'd like to get some opinions on: The first is to set up a pressure-activated piston that would launch a ball onto a platform that would return the ball back onto the piston. I would record the amount of time it took for the ball to be launched each time, and simply count the number of times the ball is launched during the competition. The other idea is to build a series of alternating J shaped ramps, then measure the amount of time it takes for the ball to fall to each new J shape. The problem with this one is I'm not sure how to ensure that acceleration due to gravity doesn't throw off the results.