What is a Rube Goldberg Machine? A Rube Goldberg Machine is a machine that performs a simple task in a very complex way.
To create our Rube Goldberg machine we started out by creating a detailed to scale Schematic. We had to include at least five of the six simple machines and we had to have over ten steps. We had three days to come up with an initial sketch, materials list, and a schematic. We had nine days to do all of our building, and an additional three days to tweak our project and work on our presentations. It took a lot of work, and lots of adjusting to get our machine to work. Our machines final purpose was to ring a bell. Test runs were hard at first because there was a lot of tweaking and adjustments involved, but in the end it all worked out great and we learned a lot!
Here is a video of our machine working:
Here is our slide show presentation of our project:
Step by Step Analysis
Step 1: The marble rolls down an incline plane and hits a lever.
Step 2: The lever swings around and bobs a balloon.
Step 3: A marble falls out of the balloon and drops on the next incline plane.
Step 4: The marble enters a tube and spins around.
Step 5: The marble exits the tube and bounces down an incline plane with screws sticking out of it.
Step 6: When the marble reaches the end of the incline lane it hits a heavier metal marble which knows over a 100 gram weight.
Step 7: The weight is attached to a pulley system and when it’s knocked over it pulls up a cup of vinegar.
Step 8: The vinegar falls into the first funnel.
Step 9: The vinegar falls into a clay volcano filled with baking soda.
Step 10: The baking soda and vinegar react and ooze out of the volcano.
Step 11: The excess baking soda and vinegar collect into another funnel.
Step 12: The baking soda and vinegar now fall into a cup on one side of a lever.
Step 13: This weighs down one side of the lever and lifts up another releasing a toy train.
Step 14: The toy train rolls down train tracks and rings a bell.
Physics Concepts
Force: Force is identified as either a push or pull on an object. It is calculated by multiplying the mass and acceleration of an object. It is measured in Newtons (N). We calculated that the baking soda and vinegar put a force of 0.269N on the cup.
Acceleration: Acceleration is the rate of change of an object's motion. It is calculated by dividing the change in velocity by the change of time. It is measured in m/s^2.We calculated the acceleration of our train going down the train track is 1.1 m/s^2.
Mechanical Advantage: Mechanical Advantage (MA) is that advantage in force given by machines. The MA of our screw is 4. The MA of our first incline plane is 5.3. The MA of our second incline plane is 4. The MA of our pulley is 1.
Velocity: Velocity is speed with a direction. It is calculated by dividing the change is distance over the change in time. It is measured in m/s or mph. We calculated the velocity of the train going down the train track is 0.8 m/s.
Momentum- Momentum is the amount of energy a moving object has. It is measured in kgm or Ns. It is calculated by multiplying the mass and velocity.
Kinetic Energy- Kinetic energy is how much energy and object has due to motion. It is calculated by taking half of the product of mass and velocity squared.
Potential Energy- Potential energy is how much energy something has in a certain position. It is calculated by multiplying mass, acceleration, and height.
Mass: Mass is the amount of matter in an object. The mass of our train was 55 grams.
Here are our Calculation papers:
Reflection
The Rube Goldberg project was a super fun way to start off the year! My group did a great job designing and building our machine. We all worked together great and we were able to complete our machine to our full potential and we still had a lot of fun! We did very good at listening to everybody's ideas and input, and we were good about including everybody in our building. During this project I learned that you always have have a plan on what you are doing each day, and you need a backup in case things don’t work out. I learned how to calculate velocity, force, acceleration, momentum, work, kinetic and potential energy, mechanical advantage and much more. I also learned that I am very good at hands on work, and building things to be very sturdy. I think we could have improved on our presentation. We were so busy tweaking our project and testing it out that we had very little time to work on our presentation. I think we could have gone more into depth about energy transfers, and include more calculations. Next time we will have better time management so we have plenty of time to tweak our project as well as improve our presentation. Overall I think we were very successful and produced an amazing project.