Rube Goldberg 5

During the break my partner (Andre) and I built our machine. The experience was very fun, but there were a lot of times that frustrated us. The thing that was the most annoying was when we reached our final step and the thumbtack taped to the meat cleaver would fall and bounce right off of the balloon without even puncturing it. Something else that was annoying was when the whole course was set up and we started but the marble wasn’t on the track. In all the machine took five hours to build. It also took around 30 attempts until it finally popped the balloon. Once we ran through the course many times we decided that some changes would have to be made. One change that we made was that we used a meat cleaver instead of a hammer. We made this change because the hammer was to heavy to stand up on their own because the weight was uneven. If I had to chose the fun but the most challenging part of this project it would definitely be this part. The best part of all was when I heard the pop of the balloon.

This is a movie my partner and I made about the project.

Rube Goldberg 4

Today in class we had a sketch museum. When I say sketch museum I mean everyone put there sketches at their desk spots. Then everyone in the class went around from table to table looking at people’s sketches. After we finished looking at someones sketch we would write a note for them on a post-it saying what we liked and something they could add. For something they can add I mean like labels for their sketch not a physical change to the machine. Most of the sketches included dominoes and balls. Some of them though were very complex and hard to understand with over 10 steps. Something that was very fun about this was seeing people’s end results. For example someone’s objective was to score a goal. Another person’s was to pour cereal into a bowl. That was one of the coolest idea I saw. Labels helped the most out of anything on the sketches because the we could see what each step did. Something that I was looking for was to see if someone else did my idea of popping a balloon. Nobody had it which was a good thing.

Rube Goldberg 3

At the beginning of the Rube Goldberg project I chose to work with a partner. In this post I will talk about how we’re working together so far. What has worked well is that we have been agreeing on each others ideas most of the time. Whenever one of us is stuck we help each other. Also something else that is good about working with a partner is that when we build we can use each others materials. This means that there is a lower chance that you’ll have to buy a lot of things. One last thing that’s a benefit is that you have someone else who can help you build the machine. The downside of working with a partner is that you are not always going to get your way. For some of the steps we didn’t agree and we discussed about who’s idea would work better. An example of us not agreeing was when we came up with the two final products of our machine. I wanted to do the one where we have to get a mini basketball into a mini hoop. Andre wanted to do the pop a balloon one. We discussed which one we thought would work better, need less materials, and be easier to build. In the end we both agreed to do the balloon one. Otherwise working with a partner is great.

Rube Goldberg 2

This post will be about the sketching phase of the Rube Goldberg project process. Before we could sketch my partner and I made a plan that had all of the steps that the machine would need to preform. Once this was finished we started the first draft of our sketch. We made changes as we learned that some of the steps wouldn’t work. The last step was to label the final sketch. This was the easiest part of the sketching phase because the plan we made beforehand had all of the materials listed. Some of the materials we used in the sketch were balls, pipe, dominoes, a phone, and a race car track. One of our inspirations was from a YouTube video we saw. In it the person used a phone’s vibration to knock down dominoes. The last step of our machine was to pop a balloon. We chose this because know one else was doing this idea. That is the same for the phone because only one other group was doing it. The sketching part of the process was very fun because we could envision our plan. It is probably going to end up being the quickest step of the whole process.


Rube Goldberg 1

This is the first of six post for the Rube Goldberg machine project at my school. The assignment is to build a machine with many parts and is over complicated that does a simple task. For this project we could choose if we wanted to work in a group, partnership, or alone. I chose to work with a partner. The machine that we have to build has to be 8 steps long. At first we thought we should make something that would score a mini basketball into a mini hoop, but we figured that it would be too hard. Our new idea is to pop a balloon. I am so excited for this project I know it will be hard but it will definitely be fun. The good thing about this project though is that we have a lot of time to complete it. There is one last thing I am excited for and that is building the actual machine. Another post will be coming up soon about the sketching.

Feature Article Podcast Reflection

At first when we were making the podcast it was very confusing. I had never used garage band before in my life so that didn’t help. Even though the podcast was only 2 minutes long it took me so long to make it. One reason. The script was the hardest part of making the podcast because it had to be a certain time. When I finally finished the podcast I uploaded the podcast on to the Heathcote Gateway.

If you want to listen to my podcast click on the link down below.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v6Nb9DGXZYRoiMYz3-F6ej9Tm52HYF_j/view