This is my third Rube Goldberg blog post. My friend Michael and I have worked a lot on this project. If you don’t already know, a Rube Goldberg is a very complicated machine which is supposed to complete a simple task. Our simple task is knocking down bowling pins. We had to have at least 8 steps in our Rube Goldberg machine. Every transfer of energy counts as a step. A transfer of energy is when one object has energy and then hits another object, so object #1’s energy goes to object #2, which causes object #2 to move or hit another object. Michael is coming to my house later today to work more on the Rube Goldberg machine. We have worked very hard on this project, and we hope it works on the first try! But Rube Goldberg machines don’t usually work on the first try because if one of its many steps malfunctions, the whole machine won’t work! This is usually what happens. But we have hope! Some of the difficulties I have encountered are that it sometimes fails and even if I get frustrated, I have to try again until it works. One time this happened is when I dropped the ball through the tube, it wasn’t perfectly in line with the big domino, so it missed. Another time this happened is when the small marble didn’t have enough power to move the big marble. Also, it was hard deciding what steps would make the cut and be in our Rube Goldberg, and what steps wouldn’t work. This is a picture of our Rube Goldberg so far:
Stay tuned to hear more about our Rube Goldberg, and in the last post, I will include a video of our Rube Goldberg in action!