Rube Goldberg Project

Evidence of Work

A Rube Goldberg Machine is a purposefully complicated machine that it used to complete a simple and common task. The idea first came from a man named Rube Goldberg, hence the name, who drew comics portraying complicated contraptions and the steps included in them and published them in the newspaper. For this project we were tasked with the job of designing and building a themed Rube Goldberg project that completed a simple task of our choice. The project had to follow a list of criteria and was presented to professional with experience in engineering and art design as well as family and friends.

My team was Chase Everingham, Sally Cesko, Mia Davis, and me. We decided that our theme would be Bob Ross and we incorporated him throughout our project. We all idolize him and watch his show. We knew he would be something that many people could connect to and it provided the fun challenge of trying to incorporate him into our machine. The simple task that we decided our project would complete was the act of flinging paint with a catapult onto a board. Our project had ten steps that led up to the catapult and was mounted on a 4 foot by 4 foot board which we painted following a Bob Ross tutorial. Each member of the group worked on some aspect of the project so that we were all doing something we enjoyed and we could complete everything on time. I completed all the ten step calculations and worked on painting the board as well as building when necessary.

Content

Velocity: Velocity is the rate of covered distance in one direction. You can find velocity using the equation velocity=change in distance/change in time. We calculated for velocity in our final step when the catapult flings the paint. We found the distance between the catapult and the board it is aimed at and divided it by the time it took the paint to hit the board. Our answer was 0.296m/s.

Acceleration: Acceleration is the rate in which something changes velocity. The equation for finding acceleration is acceleration=change in velocity/chance in time. For our machine we found the acceleration of the car as it falls down the ramp, which was 2.979m/s2.

Force: Force is the push or pull of an object. To find the force of something you use the equation force=(mass)(acceleration). We calculated for the force of how hard the car hits the marble after it rolls down the ramp. we took the mass of the car- 0.048kg and we took the acceleration which was 2.979m/s2. The force came out to be 0.143N.

Work: Work is the amount of energy put into an object. The equation used to find the work of something is work=(force)(distance). We calculated work for step one of our Rube Goldberg machine by multiplying the Force(0.8N) and the distance(0.09m) to get the work of 0.072J.

Potential Energy: Potential energy is the energy something possesses due to its height or position in a gravitational field. To find potential energy use the equation Potential Energy=(mass)(gravity)(height). We calculated the potential energy for the weight in step 8 as it rests on the platform. The potential energy for the weight was 2.699J.

Kinetic Energy: Kinetic energy is the energy an object possesses due to motion. The equation for finding kinetic energy is Kinetic Energy=1/2(mass)(velocity squared). The kinetic energy is proportional to the potential energy of the object so the kinetic energy for step 8 is also 2.699J

Mechanical Advantage: Mechanical energy is how much easier a tool or machine makes a task. To find mechanical advantage use the equation MA=F load/F effort or MA=d effort/d load. The mechanical advantage of our screw simple machine was 4.23 times.

Blueprints

This is the schematics for our Rube Goldberg Machine that is drawn to scale.