Rube Goldberg Reflection
Over the past six weeks in science class we have been studying simple machines, mechanical advantage, and work. We have been working on a big project, we call Rube Goldberg style Inventions. Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist that made drawings of his ideas of simple machines. He didn’t actually make the inventions, he just drew them. Before we started the project the class made a list with Carwai of the the simple machines, the lever, the pulley, the wheel and axle, an inclined plane, a wedge, and a screw. These simple machines increase the amount of mechanical advantage and makes it easier do a simple task. When we were discussing about the expectations of the project we decided that our machines needed to have at least one of each simple machine, except for the wedge and the screw. We figured they would be too difficult to add to our machines. These simple machines are not the only things we used in making our machines. We used a lot of dominoes, balls, popsicle sticks and many other misolanious things.
The first, and one of the hardest part we had to do to make the machine was figure out what we wanted the machine to accomplish. My group, Trevor Sofia and I, first had the idea of making lemonade. Then we thought that was too close to what some of the other groups were doing, making tea or a smoothie so we decided to think more out of the box. Because we were having a hard time thinking we decided to ask Carwai for some ideas. Then she had the idea of blowing bubbles. We really liked that idea and I didn’t sound impossible so we went with it.
Right away we knew we needed to use a pulley to pull up the hanging bubbles that were soaked in bubble solution and a fan to be close of the bubble net so it can blow them. For this project, we knew how we wanted to design the machine from the beginning.
When we were discussing about the expectations of our project we decided to make blueprints. We had about a week to decide what we wanted to do and make a blueprint to give to Carwai. The blueprints were not so much for grading but for comparing to at the end to see how much our project really changed. I don’t think that the project change too dramatically. We left our blueprint kind of open so, if it changed it didn’t look like it changed much.
Our machine started with pushing a pair of scissors down to cut a string that was attached to a bullet thing that rolled down and cardboard/wood ramp that hit a wooden ball, that rolled down a tube which hit two more balls. One of those balls rolled down some hotwheels track and hit a lead ball that rolled over the spacebar on computer that played the “Can- Can music. At the same time the other ball hit a line of dominoes that hit a pool ball which rolled down another track. That pool ball hit a rock covered in duct tape and the rock thing fell down off a table and hit a wooden table thing that had a stick in the middle than when it was hit the stick push a launcher button which had a string attached to it which was taped to the fan button. When the launcher was hit the fan turned on. The rock thing was attached to three pulleys so when the rock thing was knocked down a handmade net was pulled up and out of the bubble solution. So, when the launcher was pressed the fan blew the bubbles into a “happy area” with music balloons and bubbles!
I think for the most part our machine worked well. When we were testing it, it was pretty reliable, just the same few things didn’t work. I think that hardest thing to figure out was how to hit the launcher. We ended up making this wooded plank thing that had four sticks on the floor and one in the middle that pushed the button. Another really hard part of the process was working with pulleys. The stings kept getting off track and sometimes the actual pulleys would fall. I wasn’t there for the final presentation but I was told that our machine didn’t work as well as it usually did. But, from what I saw it was pretty consistent.
I think that there really wasn’t a leader in my group. I think we all had our own ideas and they came together. Towards the beginning of the project I started making the net and it took longer than I thought it would take. While I was working on the net Sofia and Trevor were starting to build he machine so I didn’t get to help them make the begging of the machine as much as I wanted to. But, besides that I think the work was dividd evenly.
We used most of the six simple machines. The only one we had to take out was the wheel and axel. We originally had a car roll down a track and hit the music but it didn’t put enough force onto the medal ball, so we took it way last minute.
I learned a lot at the beginning of the project when Carwai was explaining about the science of the project but i don’t think what I learned during creating the project was exactly science. I think this project was really fun and excited and I learned the basic physics of what the project was about.
