In school, we are working on  such a cool project. It is called Rube Goldberg! It is a complex machine that could do a simple task with you just pressing, or pulling something. My simple task is to plug my laptop. You have to use simple machines in your Rube Goldberg.

In our case, we have to use 3 simple machines or more. There are 6 simple machines: the wedge, pulley, inclined plane, wheel and axle, lever, and screw. The simple machines are very important to our daily life. They help us do simple tasks, that is why they are called simple machines. I used the inclined plane, ( ramp) the wheel and axle ( car), and pulley. I made the pulley by putting a ribbon on the doorknob and tying one end to my shoulder rest and the other side was just hanging so I could pull it and the shoulder rest lifted.

It took a lot of time to plan everything out. First, I had to gather the supplies for my Rube Goldberg and I had to think of some ideas that could work for me. I also had to find a simple task. We had to make a sketch of our project.

I used a lot of supplies for my Rube Goldberg. Some of the supplies I used were : Jenga blocks, books, marbles, and a ,ball. It took a lot of time to think out how I was going to plug the laptop. I think that the sketch part wasn’t that hard, if you planned it out. I have 13 steps in my Rube Goldberg, but I am trying to aim for more. It took a lot of time to plan everything out.

The Rube Goldberg had a lot of difficulties for me. First of all my brother and sister. When I was testing out one part of my project I used one of his toys. And my brother stole his toy out of my Rube Goldberg and hid it so I couldn’t use it. I had to find another supply to replace that one. My sister was very clumsy when she went near my project. EVERY time she was near it she would either knock the books down or the train track. At one point I was out of patience and told her to not come near my Rube Goldberg. Another difficulty was one of the things I was using: the Jenga blocks. I was very frustrated with it. Every time I would put the last block on it would all get knocked down, or my siblings would “accidentally” knock them down. The biggest problem for me was making the marble go down the stairs and make it go down in the marble maze. It took a million tries. It was very exasperating. The dinosaur wind up toy was also very hard. I had to balance a block on its head so it wouldn’t go. Finding the right supplies to make it do what I want was hard too, For example the pulley was really hard to make. I had to think a lot for this.

Even though I had a lot of difficulties I had a lot of success’s too. One of my success in my Rube Goldberg project was the simple machines I used. I made my pulley with a ribbon, violin shoulder rest, and a door knob. When I first made this I didn’t think it was going to work but it did, and when it did I was so happy! Also when I chose that i was going to a wheel and axle I didn’t know how to do it. But then I realized a toy car was basically a wheel and axle. I think that the inclined plane was the easiest simple machine to make.I just had to put books under the art kit so it would be a ramp. Out of the six simple machines my favorites are pulley and inclined plane. After I got the marble to go in the marble maze I was really proud of myself. After this I thought that if I made the marble go in the marble maze than I can figure out a way for the wind up toy to go straight.

I also had a lot of ideas but most of them I didn’t use or I made it a better idea.  Before I picked my simple task I had a lot of choices. One of the big ones I really wanted to do was pulling a curtain. It was really hard. It was almost impossible. I was going to pull the curtain by tying a string to it and a remote control car was going to pull it. But the remote control car wasn’t strong enough. While I was doing this I noticed that our curtain was a pulley.

I had a lot of inspirations for my ideas. The biggest inspiration was my house items. Every time I looked around I saw how things I never noticed could be one of the simple machines or that I could use it. I didn’t have to buy anything from the store I could just use the things at home. Another inspiration was the past Rube Goldberg videos. They helped me  and inspired me a lot. Mrs. Boyer also helped me a lot.

In conclusion, this project is very fun and I hope we do more of these kinds of projects. At first when I heard that we were going to do this project I thought it was going to be really easy, but when we actually started this I realized that there was more to just building it. You had to sketch it, take a video about it, and it took a lot of tries.

MY SKETCH:

In class we read two great books named fly away home and smoky nights by the same author: Eve Bunting! I personally like fly away home more then smoky night.

Something i noticed in these two stories there are two symbols. They were both animals.  The symbol in fly away home is the bird and it got stuck in the airport and it couldn’t get out. But Andrew said “Don’t stop trying, Don’t you can get out” And when the bird found a door that opened it got out. And when Andrew thinks when the bird found a passage he knows that one day he is going to get out of the airport too.

Smoky night had a symbol too. It was a cat and it represented friendship. Their were two cats and they did not get along. But they did not get along because they never knew each other that well. Then the fire happened and they helped each other. The same thing happens with Mrs. Kim and Danny’s mom .But when they put their differences aside and tried to be friends they realized that they could be really good friends.

The setting in both stories are different.The characters, Dad and Andrew live in a airport because they don’t have a house. If the setting was a different place like a street then they wouldn’t have to act like nobody and blend in the airport. Even though everyone is different on the street nobody really stands out.

On the other hand the character and the mom have a house and they do not have to worry about being caught like Andrew and his dad. They have a different problem. Their house gets caught on fire. But because of this problem they all get together.

We watched the video These are your Rights with the class and answered some questions.

I think that the most important rights that a american citizen should have is that you can practice your religion because in the past people in the colonies could not practice their own religion so they broke up with King George. And after the bill of rights were written they could practice their own religion.  For me the  most important right is that if students get punished it should not be cruel. Because if they do something wrong and get a time out of punishment it can not be cruel. Another important right that students should have is the right to have the freedom of press. Because students should have the freedom to write in their notebook or doc freely. If i had the choice to make a new right is that every single student should be treated equally no matter how they look like and which religion they are from.

I think that all citizens should have equal rights because King George did not give everyone equal rights and this started a war. King George only taxed the Americans and not his people he didn’t treat everyone equally. And he didn’t give everyone the equal rights they deserved. This is why everyone should have equal rights.

I think that the right to bear arms should be limited because you really don’t need to go around everywhere with a gun to protect yourselves. I think that they should limit this right because they could use the weapons against innocent people. Another reason that they should limit this right is because if they hunt a lot they can endanger the animals.

I think that a right that we should have is to protect the rights we already have.  One reason that we should protect the rights we already have is because nobody can just come over to us and take a right away from us for example they can’t take our right to vote.

One writing technique I used was dialogue. One example of this is when my mom and dad are having conversation on a phone. Another example of this is when me and my dad went to the car repair shop and they talked.

Another writing technique I used was internal thinking. I used that when I was thinking that the crash was a dream. Another example is when I couldn’t believe  that I had a crash.

I want to improve the part where the crash happens. I think that if I work on that part where the crash happens. I want to improve that part because it is not descriptive. If I make it more descriptive the reader will understand how it felt to be in a crash and how scary it was.

When I look at my writing “The Crash” I am proud of the dialogue I used. One example of that is in the first paragraph I used a lot of dialogue there. I am proud of the dialogue I used because in the past years I wasn’t good at putting dialogue in my stories.