What is a Rube Goldberg machine?

Out task

Our task was to make a rube Goldberg project in four weeks. This Rube Goldberg machine must require 15+ steps, 4 energy transfers, and at least 5 simple machines. This was a 3 part project, one for each member of my group. me and my group decided to make the project about growing an apple tree and what it will be like when it is fully grown. Our main goal at the end was to make a fully working machine that goes with our theme.

Final product

After all of my teammates finished their steps we all recorded a video and added them together. After my group mate, Beth, added all the videos together it looked great. Out theme for the project is planting an apple tree, this would be done in 3 steps. First is Connors step which is planting the seed. Next is Beth's step which is the sun rising and the tree grows. The last step which is mine is the apple tree fully grown and an apple drops down to the ground.

Major Physics Our Machine

Acceleration - The rate at which something changes the velocity. This is calculated by dividing velocity by the time. The unit is meters per second squared (m/s^2).

Example - When the marble falls, it will accelerate and increase its velocity.

Velocity - The rate at which something travels. This is calculated by dividing distance by time. The unit is meters per second (m/s).

Example - A marble fell at a velocity of 0.23m/s.

Force - The pull or push on an object. This is calculated by multiplying mass by acceleration. The unit is newtons.

Example - The car pushed the domino down. It applied force to the domino to knock it down.

Acceleration due to Gravity - The rate at which something changes velocity due to the force of the gravity. This value is always by default 9.8m/s^2.

Example - Every object in the machine that would free fall would accelerate at 9.8m/s^2.

Potential Energy - The amount of energy in an object a non-moving rate or standstill. This is calculated by multiplying mass, height, and acceleration. The unit is joules.

Example - The marble at the top ramp had 0.3068 J of potential energy.

Kinetic Energy - The amount of energy in the object when it is in motion. Calculated by multiplying half of the mass to the velocity squared 1/2mv^2. The unit is joules .

Example - When the marble hit the domino and fell, the domino fell with 0.0567 J of kinetic energy.

Energy Transfer - The transition from one type of energy to another type of energy.

Example - When the marble at rest begins to move it is a potential to kinetic energy transfer.

Mechanical Advantage - There are two types of mechanical advantage, real and the ideal advantage. Ideal is how much longer you push using a tool, and real is how much easier it is to make the tool do something. This has no unit because it is a ratio.

Example - The lever had an ideal mechanical advantage of 1.726.

Simple Machine - A basic machine that makes an objective easier. There are of 6 them the inclined plane, pulley screw, wheel and axle, wedge and lever.

Example - To lower the person to the next level the marble had to fall in a cup on a pulley to lower it.

Reflection

At the end I was proud about what we accomplished mainly because of the conditions we were under. We could not see each other in person because of Covid, also it was kinda hard to express our ideas on Zoom. I did get lucky that I had an amazing group that was very nice and understanding. I feel like one thing I did very well on is understanding the situation everyone was in. I think personally I contributed a good amount in this project but we mainly split it evenly among us. One thing I need to work on is being consistent with my work. What I mean by that is I need to put in more work. For example on one day I am really motivated and I do lot of work but the next day I barely do anything. As a team we did really well working with each other, we all listened to each other, did not have many problems, and we didn't argue. One big thing we could have done to make our process on the project better is, we should communicated more in the beginning because in the first week or so of the project we barely talked and we started off very slow.

In the end everything worked out and out project was really good.