Daily Archives: January 18, 2008

“Building a tug-of-war machine”

In the current issue of Machine Design, there is an article about building the tether-pull machine which was used in the most recent Space Elevator Games.  It’s an interesting article – here’s an excerpt:

“The tether machine is a rectangular box about 12-ft long and 18-in. high on each side. Using bolttogether connectors from Bosch Rexroth Linear Motion and Assembly Technologies, Buchanan, Mich., the tether pull structure easily assembles without special tools or skills. The extruded aluminum framing looks clean and attractive without painting or other finishing. The team could also choose from numerous accessories to extend the machine beyond a simple frame and base to a complete multifunctional structure. And, every aluminum structuralframing component is reusable, which made it simple for the team to make changes as designs developed.

You can access the entire article here.

The picture is from the website and was taken by yours truly – it shows the defeated DeltaX tether draped over the tether-pull machine while the tether from Astroaraneae is still wrapped around the rollers.