My Rube Goldberg Project:
-Introduction:
The name of my Rube Goldberg project is Feeding Nemo. The goal of this project is to feed the gold fish fish food. Together, my group (Ingrid, Sarah, Sam) and I created this for our STEM class project and have been working on it for the past month. I have had a good time working with my team and seeing the final product work after we put lots effort into it.
-What?:
Some of you that are not familiar with my website may be wondering,"What is a Rube Goldberg?" The idea was created by a '40's american cartoonist and inventor name Rube Goldberg. His idea was to take simple tasks, like feeding your pet or making toast, and make that task more complicated. For example, instead of turning on a TV by just pressing the on button, you can have a ball roll down a incline plane into a cup attached to a pulley that rolls another ball down another incline plane to tumble dominos over to turn on the TV. These kind of machines take quiet some time to create. Many collages around the world do competitions for creating cool machines like this one. In the title picture of this page, it shows a cartoon drawn by Rube Goldberg of someone brushing their teeth in a complicated way.
-Our Inspiration:
During the making of our draft for our machine, my group and I came up with many ideas with what we could do. We came up with lots of ideas, but one of them was to use living animals in the experiment to make our Rube Goldberg machine interesting and more unique to watch it in action. That's when we came up with feeding gold fish fish food. We then all agreed that it was going to be awesome to finishes making.
-Building and History our Rube Goldberg Machine:
When we started building our machine, my group and I spent a huge part of our time in putting our machine together. Using tools like drills, hot glue guns, saws, etc. to get the job done. We made sure it was done by checking if it worked step by step and make some changes incase of problems that need to be fixed. My group and I also spent some time decorating for our machine's ocean theme with gold fish and seaweed.
-Steps of my Rube Goldberg Machine:
The name of my Rube Goldberg project is Feeding Nemo. The goal of this project is to feed the gold fish fish food. Together, my group (Ingrid, Sarah, Sam) and I created this for our STEM class project and have been working on it for the past month. I have had a good time working with my team and seeing the final product work after we put lots effort into it.
-What?:
Some of you that are not familiar with my website may be wondering,"What is a Rube Goldberg?" The idea was created by a '40's american cartoonist and inventor name Rube Goldberg. His idea was to take simple tasks, like feeding your pet or making toast, and make that task more complicated. For example, instead of turning on a TV by just pressing the on button, you can have a ball roll down a incline plane into a cup attached to a pulley that rolls another ball down another incline plane to tumble dominos over to turn on the TV. These kind of machines take quiet some time to create. Many collages around the world do competitions for creating cool machines like this one. In the title picture of this page, it shows a cartoon drawn by Rube Goldberg of someone brushing their teeth in a complicated way.
-Our Inspiration:
During the making of our draft for our machine, my group and I came up with many ideas with what we could do. We came up with lots of ideas, but one of them was to use living animals in the experiment to make our Rube Goldberg machine interesting and more unique to watch it in action. That's when we came up with feeding gold fish fish food. We then all agreed that it was going to be awesome to finishes making.
-Building and History our Rube Goldberg Machine:
When we started building our machine, my group and I spent a huge part of our time in putting our machine together. Using tools like drills, hot glue guns, saws, etc. to get the job done. We made sure it was done by checking if it worked step by step and make some changes incase of problems that need to be fixed. My group and I also spent some time decorating for our machine's ocean theme with gold fish and seaweed.
-Steps of my Rube Goldberg Machine:
As the machine begins, thy first step is to send a marble down an incline plane into a funnel in our second step. I decided to find the mechanical advantage (MA) of the incline plane is 2. To solve this, I must measure and divide the distance (6cm) of the incline plane over the height (3cm) of it (MA=distance/time).
After that I then calculated the acceleration of the marble by dividing the acceleration due to gravity (9.8m/s squared) by the MA of 2, getting 4.9m/s squared as the marbles acceleration.
After that I then calculated the acceleration of the marble by dividing the acceleration due to gravity (9.8m/s squared) by the MA of 2, getting 4.9m/s squared as the marbles acceleration.
I the marble continues to step #2 of the machine, thy funnel sends it down into a screw in step #3. In this step, the marble falls straight down and is guided to the next step. To measure the amount of force (F) that was being applied to the marble as it fell, I took the mass of the ball (3.11g covered to 0.00031kg) and, assuming there is no friction, the acceleration (10m/s squared) of it due to gravity (Force=mass x acceleration) finding that the marble has 0.0311N of force.
In step #3, the marble continues from the funnel, from step #2, into a screw that sends it down to topple over thy first domino for step #4. In order to find the MA of the marble as it travels down, we first need find the distance of which the marble will travel (36cm), then divide it by the height (28cm) it traveled, and last find that the MA=1.28
When the marble has traveled down the screw, hitting the first domino, it starts in step #4 by toppling a row of dominos (about 53 of them) to knock down larger blocks in step #5. In this step, the amount of force the domino applies to each other domino as it topples over is found in steps #2-3. The amount of force that is toppling over the dominos is equal to the amount of force the marble has when it toppled down into the first domino, which is 0.0311N.
As the dominos continued on to step #5, they knocked over larger blocks of wood that topple each other over to the class one lever on step #6. Although the blocks of wood are much bigger than the dominos, it applies the same 0.0311N of force because the forces of every object carries on.
In the beginning of step #6, the last large, green wooden block from step #5 falls on the class one lever up into the air and hits the marble attached to the half-funnel in step #7. To find this, I need to know the amount of force that is being applied to the class one lever to shoot into the air and hit the half-funnel. I used a force meter to measure the force of the wooden block on the class one lever, which I found was 3.6N.
Step #7 begins the monument the one class lever hits the half-funnel. When it does, a marble, attached to a rubber band, gets released down the half-funnel into a plastic tube. The marble is being pushed with the same amount of force the class one lever was given to shoot up into the half-funnel. To find the force (F) was going back to step #6. The amount of force applied to the class one lever is the same as the force being applied to the half-funnel, which is 3.6N.
After the marble has rolled down the funnel in step #7, the marble rolls down into a plastic tube, then falls into a cup attached to a pulley with a string. When the weight of the marble falls into the cup, the force pushes down against it forcing it down, and causing the pulley to activate in step #9. The force (F) applied to the cup by the marble (0.00473kg) and the acceleration due to gravity (9.8m/s squared) creates a force of 4.6N. The amount of weight that pushed down on the cup from the marble also caused the pulley to activate as well.
As the marble lands into the cup, the pulley actives, rolling the string upward to pull a wooden wedge in step #10. For the pulley, I found that the mechanical advantage (MA) of the pulley is 2; the number of string on the pulley itself.
After the pulley activates in step #9, it pulls away a wedge, holding a tennis ball, to let the tennis roll down the incline plane. To find the acceleration of the tennis ball, I had to calculate the MA of the incline plane first. To find the MA, I divided the distance (0.43m) by the height (0.22m) of the incline plane, finding that it is 1.95. Then I took the acceleration due to gravity (9.8m/s squared) and divided it by the MA, finding that the acceleration of the ball was 5.02m/s squared.
As the tennis ball rolls down the incline plane, the ball hits the fish food into the bowl, finding the fish fish food. In order to find how much force was applied to the cup, I went back to step #10. I took the tennis balls acceleration from it (5.02m/s squared) and multiplied it by it's mass (0.05683kg), finding that the force applied to the tennis ball is 0.28N.
-Reflecting on my Rube Goldberg Project:
As I look back on my assignment, I had a good time working on it together with other people. Although I didn't know the people I worked with, I got to know them better and created a better bond with them. I learned that even though you are unknown to others, they welcomed me with open arms.
I had a lot of fun building the Rube Goldberg machine, but sometimes we had to make some changes for things that didn't work. For example, our class one lever was suppose to shoot a marble up like a catapult into a funnel, but we then decided to use the class one lever to shoot it's self up into the funnel with a marble attached to it (step #6-7) and a wheel and axle wouldn't go straight down the inclined plane (step #10) so we used a tennis ball instead. Even though we had to make these changes, we still managed to make everything work out properly.
In conclusion, I enjoyed working hard with my group and having the Rube Goldberg machine working properly. I can't wait to do more cool projects, experiments, and machines like this one in the future. Thank you for listening and have a good day!
As I look back on my assignment, I had a good time working on it together with other people. Although I didn't know the people I worked with, I got to know them better and created a better bond with them. I learned that even though you are unknown to others, they welcomed me with open arms.
I had a lot of fun building the Rube Goldberg machine, but sometimes we had to make some changes for things that didn't work. For example, our class one lever was suppose to shoot a marble up like a catapult into a funnel, but we then decided to use the class one lever to shoot it's self up into the funnel with a marble attached to it (step #6-7) and a wheel and axle wouldn't go straight down the inclined plane (step #10) so we used a tennis ball instead. Even though we had to make these changes, we still managed to make everything work out properly.
In conclusion, I enjoyed working hard with my group and having the Rube Goldberg machine working properly. I can't wait to do more cool projects, experiments, and machines like this one in the future. Thank you for listening and have a good day!