Monthly Archives: February 2019

Rube Goldberg #3

We have changed our whole sketch. It now includes more simple machines, each step is changing from KE (kinetic energy) to PE (potential energy), and it is a lot more interesting. The simple machines we are using includes a lever, ramp and wheel and axle. We finished the sketch and are happy with the way it turned out, and we didn’t even have to scrap our old pieces we built for the other sketch. We are using them in our new design. I will update you more when we start building again!

Recycling

Today Monica came in. She taught us how to reuse things, such as tin foil. The 1st assignment was to make something for ourselves out of 1 sheet of tin foil. I made a hat and decorated it in orange marker. Our 2nd assignment was to disassemble the things we made for ourselves (in my case, a hat) and use that to make something for a partner. I made a pair of mittens/hand warmers and again colored them orange. My partner made me a bracelet using tin foil and some very bad play-doh. Note: In the end we had to disassemble the items we made. Our 3rd assignment was to make some sort of tool that could pick up/sort bottle caps and such. This we had to do with only 3 or 4 people. Our 4th and last assignment was to work together in groups of 8 to sort through the bottle caps, etc. Within our groups we paired up into 2’s. Each pair created a tool with 3 pieces and were in charge of sorting a specific kind of bottle caps (clear, white, orange…). Overall today was really fun and I learned a lot from this experience.

Rube Goldberg #2

We still haven’t started building our Rube Goldberg yet, but have completed our first iteration sketch. It consists of 8 steps. Step #1: Push the marble. Step #2: The marble rolls down the curved cardboard tube. Step #3: The marble rolls out of the cardboard tube and rolls onto a binder, it rolls off the binder and falls onto another binder, and rolls down that binder. Step #4: The marble rolls off the binder and through two open notebooks. Step #5: The marble rolls off the notebooks and goes down a slide-like, cut open cardboard tube. Step #6: Marble rolls out of the cut open cardboard tube and knocks over a cardboard box. Step #7: The cardboard box that was knocked down by the marble, knocks down the open chip bag. Step #8:  The chips from the bag fall into the bowl at the bottom. That is our first sketch.

Feb 28, 2019

We are now using a different sketch

Rube Goldberg #1

On January 28, my class started a project about Rube Goldberg. The assignment is to build a complicated machine, that does a very simple thing. Our goal (Julia and I) is to put snacks in a bowl. Our material list includes; cardboard tubes, marbles, a chair, books, binders, a cardboard box, tape, glue and White Cheddar Corn Puffs. We decided to use stairs, because if we did it on a flat surface the ball might not get enough speed or might stop in the middle of the machine. We are really excited to start building and to test it. It’s going to be so much fun!

March 4, 2019

We are not using all of these materials anymore.