Rube Goldberg Machines
Project Description
As our first project, we were told to build a Rube Goldberg machine and present the machine to a small group of judges. A Rube Goldberg machine is a complex machine built to accomplish a simple task. We had 15 days to design, build, and create a presentation. The first three days were set aside for designing, planning, and gathering materials for the machine The next nine days were all building. This is when the majority of the work was done. The machine came to life, and started to take shape just within the first couple of days. After we had finished building, we had three more days to finesse the machine and work on our presentation. These few days were the most stressful of the fifteen. The machine had to be tweaked so much, so there was plenty of pressure to get the machine working, and finishing the presentation.
The end goal of our machine was to close a curtain. We accomplished this through a series of steps, including all of the six simple machines, a screw, a lever, an inclined plane, a wheel and axle, a wedge, and a pulley. In the first step, there is a marble that rolls down a screw and hits the first ball of the Newton's Cradle. The Newton's Cradle then proceeds to hit a foam ball which rolls into a cup. The cup is attached to a pulley, which pulls up a wedge holding back a car on an inclined plane. The car rolls into another cup, which is also attached to a pulley. The other end of the pulley has a piece of wood attached, that hits a lever, knocking a metal ball into a tube. The ball rolls through the tube, and then rolls down a series of ramps. It then rolls down the final ramp, and knocks off a piece of wood supporting the weight that pulls the curtain across.
As our first project, we were told to build a Rube Goldberg machine and present the machine to a small group of judges. A Rube Goldberg machine is a complex machine built to accomplish a simple task. We had 15 days to design, build, and create a presentation. The first three days were set aside for designing, planning, and gathering materials for the machine The next nine days were all building. This is when the majority of the work was done. The machine came to life, and started to take shape just within the first couple of days. After we had finished building, we had three more days to finesse the machine and work on our presentation. These few days were the most stressful of the fifteen. The machine had to be tweaked so much, so there was plenty of pressure to get the machine working, and finishing the presentation.
The end goal of our machine was to close a curtain. We accomplished this through a series of steps, including all of the six simple machines, a screw, a lever, an inclined plane, a wheel and axle, a wedge, and a pulley. In the first step, there is a marble that rolls down a screw and hits the first ball of the Newton's Cradle. The Newton's Cradle then proceeds to hit a foam ball which rolls into a cup. The cup is attached to a pulley, which pulls up a wedge holding back a car on an inclined plane. The car rolls into another cup, which is also attached to a pulley. The other end of the pulley has a piece of wood attached, that hits a lever, knocking a metal ball into a tube. The ball rolls through the tube, and then rolls down a series of ramps. It then rolls down the final ramp, and knocks off a piece of wood supporting the weight that pulls the curtain across.
Terms and Definitions
Lever: Made of a rigid bar resting on a fulcrum. There are three types of levers, first class, second class, and third class.
Inclined Plane: A sloping ramp used to make tasks easier.
Screw: An wedge or inclined plane wrapped around a pole.
Wedge: Two inclined planes joined back to back. Used to split things.
Wheel and Axle: An axle through a wheel, that when the axle is turned, it takes less force to move the wheel.
Pulley: A mounted wheel with a groove that can be used to make it easier to lift objects.
Force: The unit of work, measured in Newtons (N). 4.5 Newtons is equal to 1 pound.
Work: The amount of force applied to an object over a certain distance. It is measured in Joules (J).
Mechanical Advantage: How many times easier a tool makes it to accomplish task. Measured using a number, telling how many times easier the task is.
Velocity: The rate of covered distance in a direction. Measured in meters per second.
Speed: The absolute value of velocity. Speed has no direction. Measured in meters per second.
Acceleration: The rate of change in velocity. Measured in meters per second squared.
Acceleration due to gravity: The constant force that gravity is pulling down objects (9.8m/s2).
Mass: The amount of matter in an object.
Potential Energy: The energy an object has relative to its height or position in the gravitational field. Measured in Joules (J).
Kinetic Energy: Energy due to motion. Measured in Joules (J).
Materials
Reflection
Although it was a very fun project, we got off to a slow start. Our first couple of days were spent on constructing the supports for the board. This may sound easy, but it was not because we all had different ideas on how it should work. After that, I think we worked reasonably well, but there was one major snag that slowed us down. There was plenty of work to do, but all of the work that needed to be done relied on some other part working, or being on the board. This made it difficult to divide up work, so for a lot of the time we had two people working while the other two just kind of sat. I definitely could have come up with ways to be more productive, but I didn't, so I need to work on that. Another thing that I did was procrastinate. I wasn't always working when I should, and tended to put things off a little later than they needed to be put off. During the finishing touches, I only really did the final schematic and some of the calculations. There was a lot more that I could have done to make the project work more than 5% of the time. There is always more that I can improve on, but for now I think I will focus on the things I talked about above.
Lever: Made of a rigid bar resting on a fulcrum. There are three types of levers, first class, second class, and third class.
Inclined Plane: A sloping ramp used to make tasks easier.
Screw: An wedge or inclined plane wrapped around a pole.
Wedge: Two inclined planes joined back to back. Used to split things.
Wheel and Axle: An axle through a wheel, that when the axle is turned, it takes less force to move the wheel.
Pulley: A mounted wheel with a groove that can be used to make it easier to lift objects.
Force: The unit of work, measured in Newtons (N). 4.5 Newtons is equal to 1 pound.
Work: The amount of force applied to an object over a certain distance. It is measured in Joules (J).
Mechanical Advantage: How many times easier a tool makes it to accomplish task. Measured using a number, telling how many times easier the task is.
Velocity: The rate of covered distance in a direction. Measured in meters per second.
Speed: The absolute value of velocity. Speed has no direction. Measured in meters per second.
Acceleration: The rate of change in velocity. Measured in meters per second squared.
Acceleration due to gravity: The constant force that gravity is pulling down objects (9.8m/s2).
Mass: The amount of matter in an object.
Potential Energy: The energy an object has relative to its height or position in the gravitational field. Measured in Joules (J).
Kinetic Energy: Energy due to motion. Measured in Joules (J).
Materials
- Wood
- PVC Pipes
- Flexible Pipes
- A Newton's Cradle
- Black Paint
- Masses (Ranging from 1 to 50 grams)
- Marbles
- Foam Nerf Ball
- Copper Wire
- Pulleys
- Screws
- Plastic Cups
- Duct Tape
- Wooden Dowels
- Toy Car
Reflection
Although it was a very fun project, we got off to a slow start. Our first couple of days were spent on constructing the supports for the board. This may sound easy, but it was not because we all had different ideas on how it should work. After that, I think we worked reasonably well, but there was one major snag that slowed us down. There was plenty of work to do, but all of the work that needed to be done relied on some other part working, or being on the board. This made it difficult to divide up work, so for a lot of the time we had two people working while the other two just kind of sat. I definitely could have come up with ways to be more productive, but I didn't, so I need to work on that. Another thing that I did was procrastinate. I wasn't always working when I should, and tended to put things off a little later than they needed to be put off. During the finishing touches, I only really did the final schematic and some of the calculations. There was a lot more that I could have done to make the project work more than 5% of the time. There is always more that I can improve on, but for now I think I will focus on the things I talked about above.