2. THE TASK The task was to build a Rube Goldberg Machine-a
complicated contraption that performs a simple task. It had to fit
in a 131cm long and 109cm wide box. It also had to be planned, it
had to do something(in our case turn a page in a book and put a lid
on a bin), it had to be built with materials from a material list
and we had to have an equal amount of elements and different simple
machines to the number of people in our group. We had eight weeks
to design, build and make a video about our machine. It was an
exciting project to end semester one.
3. THE DESIGN This is our original design. To get to this
diagram we each created our own design then decided on one that we
wanted. We ended up combining Phoebes and mine to create the one we
have now. In it we planned to use a marble run, a domino path, a
car and pulley system, two catapults, a cog and a book that has its
page turned. Our two aims were to have a lid put on a bin and to
have a page turned in a book.
4. THE MATERIALS, ELEMENTS AND SIMPLE MACHINES To the left, the
circled images in our original design are our four elements. Grace
built the marble run, I built the pulley, Milly worked on the chain
reaction caused by dominoes and Phoebe worked on turning a page in
a book. The materials we used were: cardboard, a plastic bin, hot
glue, sticky tape, marble run, plastic tubing, empty tennis ball
tube, a pulley, string, a book, Lego and a car. Our simple machines
were a handmade wedge, a pulley, a wheel and axle and an inclined
plane.
5. THE BUILD Building the machine was delayed by the small
amount of materials that we had. After a couple of sessions of not
doing much though we had enough equipment to progress to the next
element. In the building process we used hot glue, sticky tape and
cardboard screws to connect things and found that using cardboard
was a necessity. We got our machine finished with one lesson to
spare, or so we thought. When we tried the machine the next lesson,
the pulley jammed and the car got stuck. But we got it working in
the end.
6. THE MODIFICATIONS Some modifications we made took a turn for
the worse before benefiting our machine, they all ended up teaching
us about simple machines and chain reactions. Our simple machines
were modified the most. The original concept was to have two
catapults, which were the transport for the next element to start
and the glue for most of our machine. We changed the whole idea in
the end though, the catapults(giving us two simple machines-a lever
and a fulcrum) were replaced with wedges and inclined planes due to
the many fails that we received from making them. We also changed a
lot of other things.
7. THE MEDIA
8. THE EVALUATION I thought that we worked efficiently and we
planned the design well. We overcame most problems quickly and
other machines also helped provide ideas and inspiration. Though
our machine is small and simple, it works and we had fun making
it.
9. AND I, UH, I WONDER HOW ANYBODY CAN THINK HIS PERSONALITY
CHANGES WITH HIS SUCCESS. IVE HAD QUITE A BIT OF SUCCESS, BUT I
FEEL I'M JUST THE SAME PERSON I ALWAYS WAS. -REUBEN GARRET LUCIUS
GOLDBERG PASSIONATE CARTOONIST AND THE CREATER OF RUBE GOLDBERG
MACHINES