"Yeah, yeah. I, I don't think I'm always right. But I don't think young people are always right, either."
~ Rube Goldberg
Our Rube Goldberg Machine was not only a big success on presentation night but a big challenge to make. It took approximately four weeks to put out minds together and come up with an outline for our project. The first step was our brainstorm which we never entirely focused on, instead we thought as we were building. Our final product was extremely different from our blueprint at the beginning of the process when we realized our first ideas wouldn't work. Each group member focused and created ideas for a single part of the project. Our mathematics and the actually building part was the most time consuming making us short on time while finish up last minute details or quirks.
Our final machine contained two inclined planes, a wedge, a a screw, a pulley, and a lever. A lot of our steps had to do with acceleration due to a lot of chain reactions with falling dominoes and a flying lever. Our energy transfers were from potential to kinetic energy and kinetic to potential energy. With eleven steps in our project each has a specific action to cause another action. We used many equations for each step to calculate for either force, mechanical advantage, or acceleration. For example step one has a mechanical advantage of two because you divide by using the equation MA=D/H which in this case is 6cm divided by 3cm. Over the course of our project we used six concepts to figure out the steps to our Rube Goldberg Machine which were:
1) Potential energy- An object can store energy as the result of its position
-We had potential energy in many of our steps like when our dominoes were hit by the marble causing them to fall and transfer to Kinetic energy.
2) Kinetic Energy- Is the energy of motion
-Kinetic energy was is almost every step of our project. When it came to a marble rolling down a screw to our ball hitting our fish food.
3) Work- The transference of energy that is produced by the motion of the point of application of a force
-Work was continuous throughout the whole project. After one object fell or hit something another object did as well.
4) Force- Is any influence that causes an object to undergo a certain change, either to its movement or direction.
-We calculated force for seven of our eleven steps. Force equals mass times acceleration making it easy to find the force of a marble or a rolling ball.
5) Velocity- The speed of an object in a given direction
-One step in our project, the first class lever, was the only one that used a large amount of velocity when it flew up in the air and hit the hidden marble.
6) Mechanical Advantage- The ratio of the output force produced by a machine to the applied input force.
-This concept was used the most during our project calculations. The mechanical advantage was easy to find and not that hard to find. It was as easy as looking at our pulley and see how many ropes there were other than the pulling rope which in this case was two. (Our pulley had a MA of 2)
I believe our group and final project was an exciting job. I thought our final outcome was a great success, even though we didn't finish till the last minute. Our goldfish definitely made an impression on presentation night. I could have asked for a better group to do this project with. Even though we had a lot of free and fun time we all managed to help each other out and focus on what we needed to get done. Each idea was discussed, drawn out, and tested. I learned that always working on a project by yourself is not as fun or helpful when you work with a group and that being in charge of the project downs always have to be my duty, which was nice. Even with all the good we could have improved on communication skills and full decide on how we all want it to run instead of last minute changes. But overall i believe this project along with everyone else's was just a fun experience overall and a great starting project for the next four years.
Our final machine contained two inclined planes, a wedge, a a screw, a pulley, and a lever. A lot of our steps had to do with acceleration due to a lot of chain reactions with falling dominoes and a flying lever. Our energy transfers were from potential to kinetic energy and kinetic to potential energy. With eleven steps in our project each has a specific action to cause another action. We used many equations for each step to calculate for either force, mechanical advantage, or acceleration. For example step one has a mechanical advantage of two because you divide by using the equation MA=D/H which in this case is 6cm divided by 3cm. Over the course of our project we used six concepts to figure out the steps to our Rube Goldberg Machine which were:
1) Potential energy- An object can store energy as the result of its position
-We had potential energy in many of our steps like when our dominoes were hit by the marble causing them to fall and transfer to Kinetic energy.
2) Kinetic Energy- Is the energy of motion
-Kinetic energy was is almost every step of our project. When it came to a marble rolling down a screw to our ball hitting our fish food.
3) Work- The transference of energy that is produced by the motion of the point of application of a force
-Work was continuous throughout the whole project. After one object fell or hit something another object did as well.
4) Force- Is any influence that causes an object to undergo a certain change, either to its movement or direction.
-We calculated force for seven of our eleven steps. Force equals mass times acceleration making it easy to find the force of a marble or a rolling ball.
5) Velocity- The speed of an object in a given direction
-One step in our project, the first class lever, was the only one that used a large amount of velocity when it flew up in the air and hit the hidden marble.
6) Mechanical Advantage- The ratio of the output force produced by a machine to the applied input force.
-This concept was used the most during our project calculations. The mechanical advantage was easy to find and not that hard to find. It was as easy as looking at our pulley and see how many ropes there were other than the pulling rope which in this case was two. (Our pulley had a MA of 2)
I believe our group and final project was an exciting job. I thought our final outcome was a great success, even though we didn't finish till the last minute. Our goldfish definitely made an impression on presentation night. I could have asked for a better group to do this project with. Even though we had a lot of free and fun time we all managed to help each other out and focus on what we needed to get done. Each idea was discussed, drawn out, and tested. I learned that always working on a project by yourself is not as fun or helpful when you work with a group and that being in charge of the project downs always have to be my duty, which was nice. Even with all the good we could have improved on communication skills and full decide on how we all want it to run instead of last minute changes. But overall i believe this project along with everyone else's was just a fun experience overall and a great starting project for the next four years.
This was our first weeks work. We were still figuring out what we wanted to have in the running project. For example, we originally had a marble that would fly up when the class one lever was hit by the falling wood planks but we had trouble hitting the target dead on. So instead, we created an illusion where the marble was already up in the target so all that had to be done was the lever to hit the edge of the target.
This was our outline for the entire project. This had all our details of the project along with all the math and descriptions . We used this document to memorize our information without looking at a paper.
Our slideshow showed all our steps and visual aids during our presentations that captured our audience and proved our information that was spoken. And visit www.rubegoldberg.com to find out more fun ideas, facts, and concepts. Link below: