Educational Celestial Globe with Gravity-Aligned Horizon
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional celestial globes for education face difficulties in allowing easy change of latitude while maintaining a horizontal horizon, leading to misinterpretation of celestial body positions and making it hard for students to understand coordinate systems and spatial concepts.
Innovation Solution
A celestial globe design featuring a disk part with a penetration hole for the rotation shaft, a load part for gravity alignment, and a stopper mechanism to maintain the horizon horizontal, allowing easy adjustment of the latitude and rotation of the celestial sphere without inclining the horizon.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the position of the rotation shaft relative to the hemisphere is changed to change the latitude of an observation point, then the latitude adjustment capability is improved, but the disk becomes inclined and the horizon is no longer horizontal, causing misinterpretation of celestial body positions
Solution Approach 1:
The device is divided into separate functional components: a hemisphere for displaying celestial bodies, a disk for representing the horizon, and a rotation shaft for adjusting latitude. This segmentation allows each component to perform its specific function independently, enabling latitude adjustment without compromising horizon horizontality.
Solution Approach 2:
A support structure acts as an intermediary between the rotation shaft and the disk, ensuring that the disk remains horizontal regardless of the rotation shaft's position. This intermediary mechanism decouples the latitude adjustment function from the horizon stability function, resolving the contradiction between adaptability and stability.
2Productivity
If the hemisphere and disk are rotated together with the celestial sphere, then the coordinate system rotation is improved, but it becomes difficult to confirm the supernal sphere of the observation point from the observer's viewpoint
Solution Approach 1:
The device separates the celestial sphere rotation function from the horizon disk, allowing the celestial sphere to rotate for coordinate system demonstration while the horizon disk remains stationary and fixed in the observer's field of view. This segmentation enables both rotation efficiency and observation clarity simultaneously.
3Ease of manufacture
If a conventional celestial globe structure is used, then the manufacturing simplicity is maintained, but the volume is large and cannot be easily stored or used by individual students
Solution Approach 1:
The disk is positioned inside the hollow interior of the hemisphere, creating a nested configuration. This nesting arrangement significantly reduces the overall volume of the device while maintaining manufacturing simplicity, making it suitable for individual student use and easy storage.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables clear observation of celestial bodies with a horizontal horizon, simplifies manipulation, and enhances understanding of coordinate systems without auxiliary devices, while being cost-effective and suitable for individual use.
Implementation Method 1
a load part providing a load in a direction of gravity
Data Source
AI summary
A celestial globe according to the present invention is characterized by comprising: a celestial sphere part for displaying constellations; a horizontal coordinate system part which is accommodated inside the celestial sphere part, and includes a disk part defining the surface of the ground at an observation spot and an upper hemisphere portion coupled to the upper side of the disk part and defining the sky as viewed from the perspective of an observer, and a rotation shaft member which defines the rotation axis of the Earth, wherein one side of the rotation shaft member is rotatably coupled to the disk part and the other side passes through the celestial sphere part.