Rube Goldberg A Rube Goldberg machine is a contraption, invention, device or apparatus that is deliberately over-engineered or overdone to perform a very simple task in a very complicated fashion, usually including a chain reaction. The expression is named after the inventor Rube Goldberg (1883–1970). In my groups Rube Goldberg machine we used 5 simple machines in 11 different steps. We spent 4 weeks and throughout those days we spent 11 days working and building our machine. Our machine took lots of tweaking, fixing, and altering as most Rube Goldberg's do. Our first step we had a ball rolling down a screw. In our second step the ball would hit a hinge. The third was a watering can sending water down an incline plane. In step four the water would then be soaked up in a sponge and its weight would send a light wooden block up. The wooden block would then hit a wedge which would be step five. In step six the wedge would then send a small metal ball rolling down a track and in step seven the ball would then hit a weight which would travel down a zip line. When the weight reached the bottom of the zip line it would then hit a tennis ball which would roll down a track as step eight. As the ball rolled down the track it ran into a string that triggered the plane on a track as step nine. As our final step the airplane would fly forward and pop a balloon. Click the link below to check out our Rube Goldberg in motio
This is a picture diagram we made of our steps.
Definitions 1) Potential energy- An object can store energy as the result of its position 2) Kinetic Energy- Is the energy of motion 3) Work- The transference of energy that is produced by the motion of the point of application of a force 4) Force- Is any influence that causes an object to undergo a certain change, either to its movement or direction. 5) Velocity- The speed of an object in a given direction 6) Mechanical Advantage- The ratio of the output force produced by a machine to the applied input force.
Calculations Step 1: MA=5.2 Step 2: 0.87J of work Step 3: MA=2.3 Step 4: MA=2.3 Step 5: MA=1 Step 6: MA=1 Step 7: MA=2.7 Step 8: 1.064J change in potential energy Step 9: 1.04N change in energy Step 10: Ball triggers string which releases the airplane to fly and pop the balloon
In order to find all these calculations there are many different formulas that you can use.
Reflections/Learning Experiences There were many things I learned and struggled with during this project. The main thing me and my group struggled with was time management. We were rushing till the very last second but we also learned we work a lot faster under stress. In the next project I do I will make sure to manage my time much more efficiently and plan out my project/presentation a lot sooner. I also learned that if you divide up the work between people things will go a lot smoother because you each have something you are in charge of to get done. For example after a few days of struggling on how we would get everything done we decided to split up the roles and things got a lot simpler. In addition to time management you need to make sure that you have tested your project/machine in advance to make sure things go smoothly and no accidents happen. For example, we were bringing in parts of our project the day of the presentation which did not workout well. We had barely any time to test things and the result was a 20 lb weight falling on my head. I will take all of the ups and downs of this project and use them as a learning experience in stem and use them to my benefit in the future.