Rube Goldberg Machine

Our Task/ Goal

My group and I were given the task of building a Rube Goldberg machine in the course of 2 weeks. Over the two weeks we brainstormed and created our machine. We originally came up with a space theme but in the very end, we decided to go with a toy story theme. We involved 10 steps such as popping a balloon and launching a projectile at the very end. We decorated by adding a toy horse and bunny and added pictures of toy story characters all over the board. Overall we were very satisfied with our final product.

Our Rube Goldberg Machine

10 Steps of our machine

Marble 1 rolls down a ramp
Marble 1 falls into a ferris wheel cart
Marble 1 goes around the ferris wheel
Marble 1 falls into a ramp and goes through a tube
Marble 1 falls into a pulley and lifts the horse up

On the other side of the board

Marble 2 gets released at the same time as marble
Marble 2 goes down switchbacks
Marble 2 goes down a drop tower
Marble 2 falls on to a lever
Marble 2 pops a balloon

Construction Log

Day 1: We found a board. We brainstormed what we wanted. We layed out what we wanted on the board by drawing where everything would be. We painted our ramp and screwed it in

Day 2: We found our materials for our second step which was a ferris wheel. We painted our ferris wheel and practiced to see how it would work with the ramp.

Day 3: We found the materials for our switchbacks. We painted them and screwed them in.

Day 4: We made our drop tower, by finding 4 pieces of wood that were equal to each other. We took a great amount of time on it because it was hard to drill them in because they were thick and the wood would break.

Day 5: We went back to the ferris wheel and ramp and tested them and noticed that the ball would not work so we added cardboard around the carts and we made sure it worked.

Day 6: We then worked on on our tube and ramp that would work after the marble would fall out of the ferris wheel. We also worked on our pulley. We found what we were going to launch up and we tested.

Day 7: We found materials for our lever and started testing. We used multiple materials until we found the one that worked the most. We took the whole time on it because the balloon would not pop. At the very end we found the perfect combination that made the balloon pop.

Day 8: We practiced to see that our project would work. We mostly focused on painting our board and fitting our theme to the board. We changed our theme to toy story after we orginally chose space because we thought that toy story was a better fit.

9: Our very last day we practiced our presentation and made sure everything worked and added little details.

Rube Goldberg Project

Rube Goldberg presentation

Final Product

Simple Machines in project

Inclined Plane (In Step 1, marble 1 rolls down an inclined plane)
Wedge (In Step 10, the lever is held in with a nail, an example of a wedge)
Lever (In Step 10, a lever is used to pop a balloon by putting weight on it.)
Wheel and axle (In Step 8, a car drives down an inclined plane into a cup)
Pulley (In Step 8, a pulley gets weighed down by a toy car)

Physics in our machine

Main Physics in our machine

Velocity: The speed of something in a given direction. The formula for velocity is change in distance over the change in time. The unit is meters per second ( m/s)

Example: The velocity of our marble going down a ramp was 0.43 m/s

Kinetic Energy(KE): The amount of energy in an object in motion.This is calculated by multiplying half of the mass to the velocity squared. The unit is joules(J)

Example: Kinetic Energy of marble in cart- Kinetic Energy = .05 J

Acceleration(a): The rate at which something changes velocity. This can be found by dividing velocity by time. The unit is meters per second squared.

Example- Acceleration of marble going down a ramp- Acceleration = 10 m/s²

Potential energy(PE)- the amount of energy in an object at rest. This can be found by mutiplying mass times height times acceleration.The unit is joules(j)

Example- Potential Energy of the marble in the cart- Potential Energy = 5.01 J

Mechanical Advantage(MA)- There are two types real and ideal. Ideal is how much further you push using a tool. Real is how much easier- less force- a tool makes a action.

Example- Mechanical Advantage of the tube ramp- Mechanical Advantage = 6

Force- The push or pull on an object- This is found by doing mass times acceleration. The unit is newtons(N)

Example- Force of marble falling onto the lever-Force = 1.96 J

Work- the amount of energy that is put into something. The equation is force times distance.

Example- Work of the marble falling into the cup- Work = 2 J

Reflection

Overall I was very pleased with our final project. My group members were all very cooperative and we worked with each other well.I was proud of my contribution and participation to my group. But there was somethings I wish I would have done more construction wise. We had ups and downs along the way. At first we had a little trouble finding our ideas and coming up with them, Our strengths were that we worked productively most of the days. There were some days I must admit that we were not on task. Our main problem we had along the way was the popping of the balloon at the very end. We took 3 days to finalize it but in the very end it worked well. All of us were able to take leadership in some type of form.

One thing I would work on for next time is to be able to use the tools more. I let my team do all the drilling and hammering and regret not taking part of it. I would also like to take more leadership next time such as speaking up more and taking on more hands on work. Some things I would do better if I had the chance to redo the project would be to have better construction such as neatness, Our board was all over the place and I must admit but messy. Also to have the speed of the project much longer since our project was only 7 seconds. Overall I was very pleased with my first STEM project and cant wait to do more!

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