Building a Compound Pulley

We continued our exploration of pulleys by building our own compound pulleys out of two paper clips, a piece of string, a piece of tape, and a weight. The compound pulley is where a fixed pulley is attached to something, and the second pulley is moveable and is attached to the fixed pulley. You would use two pulleys to lift something because having two pulleys makes it easier (half as hard!). BUT by having more pulleys, there is more rope, and you have to pull more times.

"It was hard making the fixed pulley stay without falling." ~ Charlotte
"You couldn't have a heavy weight because if it was very heavy it would fall off easily." ~ Sophia
"I found it a little tricky because when me and Jaxton were working, we didn't really understand how to make our pulley. Jasper was beside us with his partner. They made one that was in the show we watched that had five and they kept adding on to it." ~ Owen
"When I told my partner, let's use the big, heavy weight, I put it on the paper clip and the whole pulley fell apart. Then I used a smaller weight that was 50 g and it worked a lot better." ~ Desiree

"When we were making our pulley, we were able to make the first one easily but then for the compound pulley, we had no idea what to do because it looked pretty complicated. Ms Elder helped us and it was not as hard as it seemed." ~ Abigail
"It may look hard but it's actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it." ~ D
"The hint I would give people is that there has to be one fixed pulley at the top." ~ Priya
"A hint I would give someone is to attach the fixed pulley to the moveable pulley." ~ Silas
"You have to have one pulley attached to the weight." ~ Sophia


"My tip would be to have one straight line (of string) down and then it loops back around to the other pulley." ~ Owen
"I found that when I was making a compound pulley, I went overboard with the number of pulleys I was putting on it. It got way too confusing and it started to not work because the string got tangled." ~ Jasper
"When I was putting the rope onto the pulley, I thought you were supposed to tie it to the moveable pulley but I tried and it didn't work when I pulled the rope. So then I tried and didn't tie it and hooked it under and I only tied the fixed pulley and it worked." ~ Desiree
"My tip would be to make the moveable pulley then thread the needle." ~ Abigail
"Now I understand how to make the fixed pulley because Ms. Elder showed me how by giving me a hint putting the rope like a circle to make it work." ~ James
"Once you make a compound pulley, you have to make sure it isn't tangled when you try it out." ~ Sophia
"I saw Sophia's when she figured it out so then I understood it more. So then I tried it myself and it was easy." ~ Priya