Rube Goldberg Machine

What Is a Rube Goldberg Machine?

A Rube Goldberg machine is a machine that goes through many complex steps to achieve a very simple action. A man named Rube Goldberg made a series of comics that follow the same pattern, they would depict a contraption made to accomplish a simple task. For the outcome to occur, there would be a series of complex steps. For example, attached is an example of his cartoons. Here you can see that the outcome is to wipe your mouth with a napkin. The way you get there is much more complex than the outcome,

What Was Our Goal?

We chose the American TV show The Office as our theme. We planned for the final outcome of our machine to be a weight falling on the play button to play The Office theme song.

Simple Machines

Our first simple machine was a ramp. This was used in our first step. Our second simple machine was a screw. This was used in the second step. Our third simple machine was a pulley. This was our sixth step. Our fourth simple machine was a lever. This was our ninth step. Our final simple machine was the pair of scissors acting as two wedges. This was our tenth step.

Equations

Velocity:

Ramp 1: 0.25m/s

Ramp 2: 0.11m/s

Acceleration:

Ramp 1: 0.25m/s²

Ramp 2: 0.11m/s²

Force:

Ramp 1: 0.0071N

Ramp 2: 0.0031N

Work:

Ramp 1: 0.28J

Ramp 2: 0.088J

Potential Energy*:

Weight 1: 11.44J

Weight 2: 1.37J

Kinetic Energy*:

Weight 1: 2.44J

Weight 2: 0.33J

Mechanical Advantage:

Pulley 1: MA of 1

Pulley 2: MA of 2

*Our potential energy and kinetic energy were not calculated in the best possible way. Potential energy is best calculated right after drop. Kinetic energy is best calculated right before the object hits the ground. We instead calculated using the averages for both potential and kinetic.

Build Log

1: Tried to fill a slot in our board, didn't work out well. We also tried making hinges which didn't work.

2: We attached our spinnable mug, and worked on ramps.

3: We finally finished connecting the ramps correctly.

4: We made some edits to the ramp to increase ball speed.

5: We worked on the screw and attached to other ramp.

6: We attached a pulley and finished the screw.

7: edits to the pulley was made. We also made a box.

8: We made another box and finished the pulley.

9: Attached weights where they belonged, worked out right sizes.

10: Attached scissors and second pulley to board.

11: Made sure the lever could be positioned correctly.

12: We made sure everything ran smoothly.

13: We painted and worked on calculations.

14: Presentation practice

What Steps Did Our Machine Have?

1. Our first step was to turn a PVC cup. On the cup we wrote "World's Best Boss." The reason behind this is that the Manager, Michael, had a mug sitting on his desk in every episode that said the same phrase.

2. Our second step was to have our ball roll down a ramp.

3. Our third step was to have the ball fall through a screw. Over the screw we had built a small version of the Mega Desk. This stems from one episode where a worker stacks three desks on top of eachother and calls it the "Mega Desk."

4. Our fourth step was to have our ball roll down a second ramp.

5. Our fifth step was to have our ball run into a triangle. The energy would then be transferred through the triangle and into the weight. The weight would then fall.

6. The weight would then fall into one side of the pulley.

7. This would then pull up the other side of the pulley. Attached on the other side would be a block of wood painted to look like a flame. This represented a scene from the office. One character set fire to a trash bin to teach the office fire safety.

8. Behind the block that pulls up is a weight. This weight would then fall down through a hole drilled in the bottom of the box.

9. The weight would hit one side of the lever set up below it. This in turn would push up the other side of the lever.

10. On the side of the lever that raises would be a a stick. This would push the bottom of the pair of scissors. The scissors would be pushed together to cut the string.

11. A weight that would be attached to the string would then fall.

12. Finally, the weight would fall on the play button to start the Office's theme song.

Reflection

I learned a lot from the making of the Rube Goldberg machine. For starters, this was my first time working with tools to create something. I realized that some parts were much easier than I expected, and some were much more difficult. For example, attaching something to the board was as simple as drilling it in. In contrast, we made multiple boxes during the process which was oddly difficult. I did not measure the box sides correctly the first time which ruined the entire box. The second time I made a box I drilled not perfectly straight down so the wood split. I also learned a lot about physics. Before this project I barely knew the formula for force. I now have a much better grasp on different equations.

Some things that we struggled with were time management, and being overly ambitious. We started off with blue printing our design. We made our design really ambitious. Looking back on it now, some parts were not physically possible to achieve with the resources we had. This caused us to have to size our machine way down which disappointed us. We also had problems with our time management. We could have used our build days more efficiently if we time-blocked everything that we needed to accomplish. I also missed two days of the project for family related reasons. This caused some kinks not to be worked out in time. By the end things were very hit or miss (as you can see in the video). Things were very hard to set up properly and most of the problems in our final design were linked to human error when setting up. If we used our time more wisely we could have avoided the problems with human error completely.

IMG_0128.MOV

Sadly, the only video we got was when my parents came to Rube Goldberg night. This was by far the worst our board worked all night. Like I said, a lot of things had to be set up perfectly. If I could change one thing it would be the amount of times our board relied on perfection.

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