Invention

Introduction

We invented a machine to predict the tide we named it tide monkey.

Brief History

The tide is a great subject, but is was very difficult to find an experiment, invention or collection to do.  This is why we have this history.  At first we thought we should make a collection of the animals that live in the tidal zone.  It was quite an interesting sight seeing the two of us stumbling over logs at midnight (because that was when there was a low tide.)  collecting animal's shells for our collection.  When we got home we only had a few shells, bits of seaweed and barnacles...that's when we decided to change plans.  That was also when our plan for tide monkey hatched!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tide Monkey

Even for a computer, predicting the tide WITH all the geographical factors is very hard.  That's why we chose a location on earth that has very little geographical factors to make a machine for;  The Gilbert Islands.  Our machine worked like a train's wheel; there is a stick attached to a circle.  When the circle spins, the stick moves up and down.  But instead of one circle, we had three dials; two that indicate the time and one that indicates the phases of the moon.  There is a green clock (for the moon) and a pink clock (for the sun).  We made the sun clock half the size of the moon clock because the sun's effect on the tide is half of the moon's effect.  And, attached to the stick that's attached to the arrow on the sun clock, is the monkey!

Tide Monkey Operation

Legend:

Pink: arrow A

Blue: arrow B

Green: arrow C

Step One: Point arrow A (hidden behind long stick) at the right phase of the moon.

Step Two: Point arrow B (hidden behind the sun clock) at the right time of day

Step Three: Point arrow C at the right time of day

Step Four: Check where the monkey is; if it's in the red section, there's a high tide, if it's in the orange section, there's a medium tide and if it's on the yellow section, there's a low tide.

Results

We graphed the results of our invention and compared it with a real tide predicting machine on www.tide and current predictor

Our results:

The tide and current predictor's results:

As you can see they do resemble so our machine is quite accurate.