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Rube Goldberg #5

 

Rube Goldberg Blog Post #5

Testing the design

Testing the Rube Goldberg machine was both fun and stressful!  Though I was testing each step of my design when I was creating the sketch, I had to make a few changes when I put everything together.

The biggest change I made was redesigning the second to last step, which was originally designed to be a yo-yo knocking over a few dominoes which tips the cup into the recycling bin.  This step looked good on paper and worked when I tested it separately as I was sketching it out. But I realized that it did not work consistently when it was connected to the previous step.  I thought of replacing the yo-yo with a bell. The idea was that the ball would roll into the bell, and the momentum would transfer from the bell to the dominos.



This was also fun, because the bell rings before knocking the dominoes.  It’s like a reminder, “Remember to recycle!”

I had also not thought through how all the steps would flow together.  Thinking about how the various pieces should be arranged was challenging.  My aha moment was to use gravity help me! I started with the last step, which was the recycle bin on the floor, and arranged each previous step to be slightly higher.  This way, the initial step was at the highest point, and the momentum from the marble would keep increasing.

I also had a few challenges with the initial step of the marble rolling on the bridge to knock over the car.  The bridge was not smooth and had a couple of deep ridges.

I had to go through 4-5 cars to get the car with the right size wheels.  

The marble also would not roll smoothly over the bridge. I came up with the idea of placing dominos on the bridge so that the marble could roll over the smooth dominoes.


That worked well!

The ball would also keep rolling off the ramp, and I wasn’t sure how to fix that.  

I tried a few other balls, and finally a ball which was less bouncy was the answer.  This ball stayed on the ramp and fell into the cone as I had designed.

Overall, I had 14 fails and then success on the 15th try! I was so happy!

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