Craig Fox
Website:www.fwengineering.co.uk
Job role:Director / mechanical design engineer
Skills:CAD model development, technical drawings, prototypes, 3D printing, photo realistic renders, contacts with manufacturing companies
Hi, I’m Craig and I run a design and engineering consultancy. My background is in mechanical design and development engineering and I have worked on products ranging from race cars to large diesel engines to health and safety equipment. I’ve always loved getting involved in STEM support with schools and this looks like a great initiative where I could share my design and engineering skill to help bring some amazing inventions to life.
Recent blog entries
These 3 ideas for a Feel Good Friend are amazing. I hope I can do each individual idea justice when merging their intent together into a hybrid super-design!
After a lot of sketching, I think I've come up with something that captures the essence of each idea into a single machine.
From Aubery's Nature Globe, I've taken the bell jar on top to contain flowers, helping you relax by feeling closer to nature. From Lauren's Affirmation Vending Machine, I've taken the mood selectors, allowing you to reflect on how you're feeling today and input that into the machine. From Louise's Positivity Popper I've taken the moving display of flowers to lighten your mood and make you smile. And from all of the ideas, I've included a method of dispensing positive affirmations, in the form of stickers that you can wear with pride and take away with you.
The way I see this Feel Good Friend machine working is that you begin by selecting your mood on the crank wheel. Reflecting on and acknowledging your mood can help you process it better. You then turn the crank wheel, sending that emotion into the machine. As the crank wheel is turned, the flower bouquet in the bell jar turns, brightening your day. A positive affirmation sticker is then dispensed from the front of the machine, giving you an uplifting message to take away with you.
I sent my concept sketch into AI to see what it may look like when I've built it. What do you think?
My plan is to move the train using magnets. There will be a little magnet stuck to the bottom of the train and a much bigger magnet that will be stuck to the turntable underneath the tracks. The benefit of doing this? It means we can move the train without actually touching it so that it looks like it's driving itself!
I found a cool model of the Stephenson's Rocket train to use for this project. The real version of this train didn't actually run on the Stockton & Darlington railway. But the first train to carry passengers on the Stockton & Darlington railway, Locomotion No. 1, was made by the same man; George Stephenson.
The magnets work really well at pulling the train along. I've aligned the 2 magnets with their north and south poles facing each other so that they attract together. This attracting force makes the train want to follow the big magnet underneath the tracks, so when the magnet on the turn table moves, the train drives along the track.
The next phase is to make the cam and pin system which will lift and lower flowers from the landscape around the train. Keep your eyes peeled for another update on this soon!
What a great invention! I love the idea of a train travelling around the country distributing seeds to improve the biodiversity along our railways.
I've taken Elizabeth's idea and starting planning how I'll turn it into a model for the Stockton and Darlington Railway 200th anniversary exhibition. My thinking is this: a train will travel on a circular track pulling a seed dispersing carriage. Underneath the track is a turntable which will rotate a magnet and a cam. The magnet will pull the train above along the tracks. The cam will push up pins covered in flowers, showing that as the train travels along it causes new plants to grow behind it.
I hope this will be an interesting way of bringing Elizabeth's idea to life in model form and show off the great concept of using trains to enhance the nature in our world.
