" I , I don't think anyone is continually happy, uh, except idiots, you know. You know, you have to have little moments of depression" Mr. Goldberg
Rube Goldberg Machine
Our Rube Goldberg machine is set of complex actions to complete the very simple task of putting a whoopee cushion onto a chair. We had to complete this task in 25 hours over a span of two weeks. In these 25 hours we had 10 steps that were more complicated then they needed to be to make a long but fascinating sequence of tasks. Our first step was to hand crank a marble up a marble elevator into a funnel. This was a very easy task to start with but one problem occurred causing us to have to use the hand crank instead of the electric motor we had in the begging. The reason for this action was because originally the wire extending from the axle to the motor was stretched to far so it snapped because it was slung onto the back of our project creating a lot of tension on the wire. Our next step was after the ball dropped into the funnel it traveled through a screw to hit a wooden block. This step just like the first one wasted a lot of our first building days because we could not find a way to get a funnel or build one. Luckily one of our team members was able to buy a funnel we then went onto step 3 with little thought but great outcome. We made a pulley system that then lifts a golf ball into step 4 which rolls down onto a inclined plane. After rolling down the inclined plane it hits a swivel(step 6) which then knocks a tennis ball (below the swivel) into a dual action lever which is step 7. It then knocks a metal pipe after rolling down one side of the lever and the pipe falls hitting another pipe to create a bell like sound which is steps 8 and 9. Then on the other side of the lever it hits a blue ball which knocks into a whoopee cushion causing it to fall onto the chair for a unsuspecting person to sit on. This was step 10 and 11 completing our project.
Our Calculations!
Simple machines: Our 5 simple machines are the wheel and axle on the marble elevator, pulley on step 3 to lift the golf ball, a lever when the swivel is hit by the golf ball, inclined plane that the golf all rolls down after the pulley, and lastly the screw the marble went down in step 2.
Kinetic energy: The amount of energy used to hit the ball in step 3 was .001778 J of energy and the equation was KE=1/2 MV^2 or Kinetic Energy= 1/2 mass x velocity squared.
Impulse: Impulse= momentum and momentum can be found by M=MV or momentum = mass velocity. We used this in step 6 for the impulse of the mini lever on how long it hits the tennis ball and the answer is 77.091
My Reflection on the project!My thoughts are very mixed on this project on how well we worked together. I feel in the end we really picked up our game and were able to work well even through some rough patches. We had a lot of stints in the beginning. We took over 3 days just to get our first 2 parts onto our board but still were not able to be stopped we finished on time with extra time to be able to present and have almost no flaws during presentation. We only had one major fault in our project which was the fact that our wooden block may not go off or it may go off early ruining the whole project. We spent our last days trying to fix this but it ended up with a big 50% work rate to our advantage as usually it failed more than 2/10 times we tried it. My team had a great view and were not goofing around so we were able to stay on track and build the day after we planned what our project would do. Overall i would give my team a 8/10 for an awesome experience they gave me and cooperation we shared.
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Energy transfers: 5 energy transfers we had were the marble elevator to the funnel drop which was PE to KE, marble to block of wood KE to KE, golf ball too swivel KE to KE, pipe to pipe PE to Sound, and lastly the blue ball to the whoopee cushion which was KE to KE.
Mechanical Advantage: MA= d^1/d^2. We incorporated this into our project by finding the MA of step 1 which is 8. It was also used for steps 4 and 5 with step 4=1.104 and step 5=3(keep in mind step 5 its ideal MA).
Force: F=ma is how you find force or Force= mass x acceleration. We incorporated this into our project multiple times. We found out that a whoopee cushion takes 53 newtons of force to be compressed.
What I've learned:2 things i learned while doing this project is for one i got better at working on cooperation. So instead of being the leader every step of the way i was part leader and part follower as my other teammates took control. I also got better at listening to others. I think i listened really well and so I could understand and put in motion my teammates ideas.
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