On January 21, 2017 our Rube Goldberg group met up at my house at 41 Sheldrake Road. We were worried that we would not finish this project in time so we agreed not one of us would quit before it was completed. Our first idea for our project was to knock over a king chess piece but on that morning we changed the goal to putting out a lit candle.

Bora and Justin arrived at my house at 11:15 am and they seemed ready energetic and ready to work. We went up to the attic and looked at our Rube Goldberg, which was a mess. We realized we would have to work harder than usual. First we looked for a candle and I found my moms favorite yoga candle but at that moment we didn’t care and made it the last piece of the Rube Goldberg puzzle. Over the next 3 hours we planned, designed, and built our Rube Goldberg. At this point we were starving and cranky boys. The meeting we ordered BBQ wings and we wanted to keep it a tradition but we had to first complete our mission. We expected our Rube Goldberg to take 20-30 tries before succeeding but a miracle happened. As our stomachs grumbled we witnessed our Rube Goldberg being completed on its first attempt. Lunch was ordered.

 

Our first idea for our machine was very different than our current idea. At first we did not incorporate gravity but right now gravity is our best friend. We are including slopes, inclined planes as well as some drops in our design. We decided to do this because my dad said, “The best machines have to do with gravity”. I think including gravity is in some ways a good idea and in some ways bad.

The reason it is a good idea is because gravity is like a free piece of equipment that is all around us. I think we should use gravity to pull the cups down from the shelves and pull the pipes down from the chairs after hit with force. This would help because the falling object would collide with another object and cause it to move. The reason I think this could be a bad idea is that using gravity is like using a knife, if you don’t use it correctly, something could go wrong. For example, something could fall and land in the wrong place and ruin the project.

My group members are very excited about Rube Goldberg but we have come up against some obstacles. We have had trouble finding time to work together, because we all are very busy and have different schedules. We have decided that we need to talk to our mothers and ask them to set up some time for us to get together because we are not quite as mature and ambitious as we could be. Another problem we are having is coming us with ideas for our machine. We all think that we can do better than our sketch and we want to change things up and make ours different than everyone else’s.

We were thinking that we could jazz up our machine to make it unique. We want to use materials no one would ever think to use, like a helium tank or a drone. We discussed changing the car we are using to knock into the water bottle because the marble was not hitting it with enough force to move the heavy car. One option is to get rid of the car and have the marble just hit dominoes. Or, we could have the marble roll and hit the water bottle directly. We are not sure where the helium tank and drone would come in but we are working on it.

 

The work with garage band  was fun but challenging. Our goal was to create a 3 track piece representing the New World Symphony and John Williams Jaws. I found it very challenging to make it sound like the symphony. I like my 2nd piece better because all of the tracks blended together very well. I love this unit and I would love to do it again sometime.

Last night my dad and I work for a 1:30 on Rube Goldberg. We thought of many Ideas but some did not work. We wanted to incorporate gravity into the design. We decided to use a 10 pound weight because we thought it would be enough weight to pull the trigger on the nerf gun.

We used the attic stairs, which are the longest stairs in the house, to allow the 10 pound weight to haven enough momentum to pull the trigger. In order for the weight to fall down the stairs, after the drone crashed into the books, we used two different books to support the weight.  We used the Stargirl and Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Star girl is a paper back and Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a hard cover. We wanted the books to be uneven so the 10 pound weight would fall in the right direction, down the steps, when the drone crashed into the books. Next we tied a string to the weight then tied the other end to the trigger of the power shot nerf gun.

Next, we realized that the weight would pull the nerf down the stairs when released, so we put a 12 pound weight behind the gun. We chose a 12 pound weight because it is heavier than a 10 pound weight so it would keep the gun in place. We tried this 8 times and the 9th time the weight fell properly down the stairs and the gun fired.

I think our Rube Goldberg group is not working well together because we are disagreeing and fighting. Sadly this is preventing us from doing our work. Sometimes when Bora and Justin are fooling around, I am the only one doing the work. The thing we are fighting over is our sketch. We are all a little stressed about when it is due and we haven’t even started. We are also disagreeing over what task our project will complete. I say it should turn off the lights, my group says it should knock over a king chess piece which is not a task. We are all a little skeptical if our design will work. One main problem is what is heavy enough to turn off the lights.

Gravity is our friend in this project, And this weekend we need to decide what our task is. Using gravity we will knock books over, drop weights, fire a nerf gun, spill dominos, and begin a few other designs. The biggest challenge is working as a group and figuring out our problems. Our goal is to meet expectations and work as a group. I think we can do this.