Rube Goldberg Blog Post 1
I’d created a sketch, but now I had to test it. Who knew if it would work or not? Even before I built it, though, I had to find materials and maybe revise some parts of the machine. So I wrote down a list of materials I’d need to find:
- Toy car
- Blocks
- Marbles
- Toy Seesaw
- Long and Short Cardboard Tube
- Cardboard Strips
- String
- Marker caps
We began the search around the house. I had no toy cars, so I decided to ask Cindy for one. She agreed. Blocks were slightly more difficult. However, we remembered that Legos were a good weight and could make different shapes. So that’s what we used. Then, we had to find marbles or some sort of small ball. Somehow, I’d forgotten about an old Chinese board game that had a lot of marbles. Next on the list was a toy seesaw, but to this day, we still don’t have it. I’ll probably make it out of some cardboard I had left. Speaking of cardboard, my mom had warned my dad about keeping cardboard tubes beforehand, so I used those. Then we needed cardboard strips, and we cut up some boxes. I was using string and some pulleys Mrs. Roberts gave me. Now it was time to assemble(without the seesaw).
I decided the Rube Goldberg would be built in the dining room. It was relatively empty and not completely in the way of everyone else. A confusing part of building the contraption was that I couldn’t figure out how my sketch worked. It was designed vertically, so I’d have to use some sort of wall. Also because of that, I’d have to attach my parts to the wall, thus adding more materials to my list of to-finds. So, all-in-all, it was fun but challenging on some fronts.
Testing the machine was another story. It was annoying to have to set everything up again, to tilt the seesaw the right way and put up the Jenga blocks. And the marbles went everywhere! But it was still pretty fun, and while it was slightly exasperating, I could still find joy in it.
I haven’t needed to make revisions in anything, but I think that the Jenga blocks are a little too heavy. I may need to change it to something that can topple easier. One really frustrating thing was when something went wrong but it was hard to pinpoint what part went wrong, especially because I have a lot of materials. A challenging thing was knowing how to fix it (e.g. should it be bigger or smaller?). But in the end, I still managed to work most of the kinks out. I didn’t really have any “aha” moments. While I’ve done a lot, there are definitely some things to fix and smooth out, so I’m looking forward to when my Rube Goldberg will actually be done.
