Rube Goldberg Machine

A Rube Goldberg Machine is a series of events that cause one final action. It is a collection of multiple, simple machines that are used to elaborately complete a quite simple action.

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Rwanda themed Rube Goldberg Project

Over the course of about four weeks 3 other students and I created our very own Rube Goldberg Machine. Our machine was Rwanda themed and included many different mechanical components based on physics and geometry. However because our theme was so unique we really had to base the aspects of our machine on the theme to display it. To better emphasize our theme we included a hula girl, palm trees, a volcano, and painted our board the colors of the Rwandan flag. In order to engage the crowd more we made our final reaction a chemical one, of baking soda and vinegar or soap, yeast, water, and hydrogen peroxide, making a volcano explode. Here I have included a video of our machine functioning, our power point presentation, and our complete construction log of the entire project.

Construction Log

  • September 6th- Brainstormed theme, sketched blueprint,
  • September 7th- Created official blueprint
  • September 10th- Learned how to use tools, began building process
  • September 11th- Cut board, painted bottom board, placed top pulleys
  • September 13th- Put two boards together, finished top pulleys, created lever, made Volcano, added glitter to bottom board
  • September 17th-Painted Volcano, Painted top board, made palm tree, made zipline, made hula girl
  • September 18th- Made sharks, made ramp, added guards to ramp, enforced zipline
  • September 19th-Changed second pulley idea, fixed weight ratio on sun and lever, painted sharks and placed on board
  • September 18th- Made sharks, made ramp, added guards to ramp, enforced zipline
  • September 19th-Changed second pulley idea, fixed weight ratio on sun and lever, painted sharks and placed on board
  • September 21nd- Finished painting top board, built screw, painted coconuts and trunk of tree, tested zipline with knife
  • September 24th- Switched wedge to pop balloon, changed second lever to pull string instead of cut
  • September 26th- Adjusted funnel for ballon, adjusted exacto knife, tested balloon popping
  • October 1st- Moved boards from makerspace, tested balloon with vinegar and baking soda, began calculations and presentation
  • October 2nd- worked on construction log, presentation, final blueprint, calculations