Our Machine

Machine Description & Photos

We developed our Rube-Goldberg machine inside a spare meeting space within our school. We made use of a 10x10 corner. We laid out plastic tables on the floor to mark our boundaries and mounted four pegboards in order to attach some of our contraptions to the walls.

The pegboards mounted on the wall were very useful as we were able to attach objects using wooden dowel rods. This gave us much more space to work and have our Rube-Goldberg machine really spread out. It also enabled us to have many more gravity-based contraptions since we had more vertical space and we didn't have to worry about how to support the objects vertically.

Our Rube-Goldberg machine also incorporated many childhood toys such as hot wheel tracks, Slinky, domino's, marble tracks and wind-up toys. We choose to use so many toys like this because they were colorful and versatile.

Finally, we incorporated the green and gold decorations into our final design to tie to our school colors and team name. This was our theme for our machine.

FINAL UPDATE: OUR FINAL MACHINE WOULD ONLY RUN WITH HUMAN INTERVENTION. IF WE HAD MORE TIME, WE KNOW WE COULD HAVE GOTTEN IT TO WORK ON ITS OWN. CHECK OUT THE VIDEOS PAGE OF OUR WEBSITE TO SEE THE MACHINE IN ACTION.

Our Machine

This is Anthony standing inside our RGB machine.

The Team

Here is the team just before filming the runs.

Vertical Panels

Here is the first part of our machine.

Team Name

We chose our name based on our school's mascot.

The Start

The beginning is a Code Mouse that moves through a maze for some cheese. It pulls a stopper that starts the rest of the machine.

The Final Step

A block rolls down a xylophone to hit a sensor on an EV3 robot. The robot then moves to dump the box of Nerds.

Panel 1

Panel 2

Panel 3

Panel 4

Dominoes

Both of these domino runs (forefront and background) were the most challenging for us. The slightest movement and we would have to reset the machine again.

Chain Step

One of our favorites. The chain is pulled down releasing a block releasing the car.

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