Tag Archives: Rube Goldberg

Rube Goldberg Machine #6

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For my final blog post I thought I would recap the whole entire project. When we went to our first meeting Jason already had the start of the machine finished. We tested it many times and it didn’t work. So we scraped it and went for a different approach. We had such a good idea that we didn’t even need to write it down. After that we got some help from a kid that did the project already. When I say help I mean he gave us a lot of materials.

We had 3 sessions where we just built. After that we just tested for the rest of the 4 sessions. That part was discouraging. We had so many fails and we never actually caught the actual thing if we got a success. When our hopes were down we just put on some motivational music and got back to work. That helped a lot. We got through 34 takes without being mad once. Everyone being in a good mood helped us get through it. Then we got a success. That was amazing. It helped me understand that if you put enough work into something then it will work out at one point.

Rube Goldberg Machine #5

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Over the course of this project I learned that cooperation can get you very far. At the start we didn’t cooperate at all and we got nothing done. But when we got used to the work environment and started to cooperate then we got stuff done. When we started to get stuff done, our brains were working so hard that we didn’t even need to design the machine. We went through many iterations before we came to the final one.

A car went down a spiral ramp. That car hits another car that goes up a motorized escalator, which hits some popsicle sticks. Those hit into a car which goes down a straight ramp. That car hits a ball which hits into some dominoes. Those dominoes activate a pulley which knocks a ball into the net. That is it.

Rube Goldberg Machine #4

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In our last meeting we changed a couple things. Our goal was to get a ball in a net, and we added a pulley. We finally got a success. We were waiting on that moment for the longest time. After 34 takes we go our first success of the full thing. We are very happy to finally finish it.

Throughout the editing process I realized many things happened on video that I didn’t know about at that time. People yelling, people whispering. Also the time when we all brought our computers my computer was in the background, but I didn’t notice that until editing. I had a lot of fun editing the video. Here is the video if you want to watch it:

Rube Goldberg Machine #3

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We decided that our machine was taking up too much space, so we moved it onto a pool table. We decided to give it a name so since we had just moved it to a pool table, we named it, Pool’s Closed. Our group decided that we would change our end goal. Our new goal was to push a ball into a box. We added some more steps. Our dominoes would hit a pool ball. That ball would roll and hit a block of 3 dominoes. Those dominoes are attached to a string, so when they fall of the table it becomes part of a pulley. The domino on the other end hits some more dominoes. Those dominoes hit a ball, that ball goes down a spiral ramp. Finally, it goes into a box. We finished our machine.

 

But it’s not done yet, we still need to record it and do all of that. But that is due later, for now, we finished our machine. I think that so far, this has been a great experience. We failed sometimes but we didn’t let that bring us down. Working with a group has been a massive help to us. Sometimes when you get down because you just failed there is always someone there to support you. I couldn’t have chosen a better group.

Rube Goldberg Machine #2

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When it came to start building the machine there were a couple things we needed to do. When we got to Jason’s house he already had something built for the first step. We tested it a couple times and we found out that it wouldn’t work. So we scrapped that idea. We began with a loopy slide that a car would go down. After that it would hit car that goes up a little escalator. That would fall off of the escalator and hit some dominoes. Those dominoes would hit some blocks with popsicle sticks on them. The popsicle sticks would fall and hit a couple more dominoes.

 

I think that testing our design so far has been pretty good. Since it takes so much patience to set up, when we fail we all scream because then we have to set it up again and again and again. While testing it we have had a few successes but it is rare. When we test we try to find out what we can do better based on the results of the test. If some dominoes are too far apart or one of our parts doesn’t work. Here is one successful test: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MVhFcDZZsdj90YbwzkHRG9V3hcblnTDn Here is one test where it failed: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MVhFcDZZsdj90YbwzkHRG9V3hcblnTDn

Rube Goldberg Machine #1

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My Rube Goldberg machine group has Jason, and Drew in it. The first time we met to discuss the project we made the design and started working on our first step. Our end goal is to put a ball into a red cube. What we planned that our final step would be that something hits the ball, it goes down a little maze and ends up in a red cube. Then we started with the first step and we would go on from there. Our first step was someone would push a car down a swirly slide and it would hit a car that goes up a motorized escalator.

After that we do not know what we will do. I think that working in a group is easier than working by yourself because you have multiple minds working together not just one person coming up with all of the ideas, but sometimes if you are working in a group you don’t always get what you want. Overall I think that it has been a nice experience so far and I hope it keeps getting better. This is a video of a successful test we did (in the video you can’t see some of the dominoes falling.)