Rube Goldberg Machine

On August 30th, my group, Abhiram, Ved, Savannah, and I, was assigned to build a Rube Goldberg Machine. We were given 4 weeks before we were assigned to present. We needed to have 10 or more steps, 5 simple machines, 4 energy transfers, and 3 principles of design, and the theme we chose was holidays.

Rube Goldberg Machine

13 Steps

  1. The ball rolls down an inclined ramp.

  2. The ball goes over the seesaw (lever), marking the end of Valentines Day.

  3. The ball rolls down another ramp into ST Patrick's day.

  4. The ball falls into the funnel (screw), marking the end of ST Pats day.

  5. The ball rolls down a ramp that hits an Easter egg making the start of Easter.

  6. Easter eggs roll through April, and hit a door to mark the end of Easter.

  7. The door releases the ball onto two inclined ramps in a row, jumping through June, July, and August.

  8. The ball rolls down a 16 ½ inch ramp going through September and onto October.

  9. The ball falls into the Halloween bucket (pulley).

  10. The pulley drops down and pulls the wedge, which releases the ball and rolls down another ramp.

  11. The ball falls onto the 48 inch ramp going through Thanksgiving.

  12. The ball collides with the wooden block.

  13. The wooden block activates the Ball Drop and starts New Years.

Rube Goldberg Machine is a machine that follows complex steps to perform a simple task that usually has a chain reaction. The name for RGB comes from a cartoonist named Rube Goldberg.

Requirements:

10+ steps

5 simple machines

4 energy transfers

3 elements of design

First and final blueprints

Calculations for every step

5 simple machines

  1. Inclined plane - Across our project board we have multiple inclined ramps to keep the ball going forward.

  2. Lever - We had a seesaw that represented the lever, so that when weight was applied, pulled one part up and then down.

  3. Screw - At St Pats day we had a funnel that represented the screw.

  4. Pulley - When Halloween started we had a ball fall into the bucket to pull the wedge up and release another ball.

  5. Wedge - The wedge was the wooden piece pulled up by the pulley.

4 Energy transfers

  1. The first energy transfer is Potential ~ Kinetic - (Ball rolls down a ramp)

  2. The second energy transfer is Kinetic ~ Kinetic - (Ball hits Easter egg

  3. The third one is also Kinetic ~ Kinetic - (Ball hits the door)

  4. Lastly the fourth one is Kinetic ~ Potential - (Ball pulls pulley down)

Original Blueprint:

Final Blueprint:

Construction log: In this picture it shows the work and ideas we had for the upcoming weeks on build days and other important days


REFLECTION


Since it was the first project of the year with a group that had no chemistry I felt like we did very good. There was many up and downs during the project such as our contribution all together and the work ethic. As for myself I can be pulled off topic very easy, ask anyone in the group. Many of my friends were in the class and had their projects making right next to me. I felt like i was more of the brawn's then the brains so at the beginning i left it to my teammates to complete calculations


If i had to improve anything for the group it would communication. We slacked that a lot, we had some work days where we didn't even know what the plan was or the idea. I know that we all just meet each other but we didn't understand each others strengths. In the middle i could see who was good at what. Slowly we began to share our strengths around the table. From then we finished more quickly and added more than we would usually in a day.


In the end i think my contribution to the group was more than good. I showed my strengths in building and designing. At first I wanted to work alone and let them do their own things. After awhile i realized if we wanted to get work done we had to come together. In the end contribution was spread around all the areas.

Overall I think the project was success and we all had some great memories. I am proud of the work we all accomplished and cant wait for the upcoming projects headed our way.