My class and I did a project called Rube Goldberg. A Rube Goldberg is a chain reaction that leads to doing a simple task. My simple task was closing the cover of a book. It was very stressful testin because things kept falling apart. and I had to take lots of breaks. But at the end of 24 exasperating tests, I completed my goal.
I think that learning about simple machines was very helpful. After I knew about simple machines, I could do a lot more specific details in my Rube Goldberg. For example, I had a better understanding of how I could use a pulley to close my book cover.
In the beginning, I had all these ideas. But when I put them together nothing made sense. Like, I had no way to connect the books to the marble run. I think The materials that worked the best for me, were the marble run and dominos because they were reliable and I knew really well how to use them. My teacher asked us to draw a sketch of what we thought our project would look like. In the beginning, I used a tube with a marble to hit dominoes but realized I did not need it, because the tube could just have the tube nock into the tile.
Overall, this process was fun but stressful. I loved learning about simple machines and being able to become a real engineer.