Rube Goldberg Success!

Where are we?

On Wednesday we were able to complete our rube Goldberg machine after tons of attempts with no success. This was extremely gratifying, and a huge relief. Below is the video of our completed machine.

Forces


We had many forces at work in our machine, the most used was the forces found in dominoes. Dominoes like all other objects obey Newtons first law of motion: an object in rest, or motion will remain in its state unless acted upon by an outside force. The dominoes stayed where they were until they were hit by the third step of our machine. This caused one domino to fall over and hit another, this process continued until all the dominoes were knocked over. The force that was gained by the first domino being hit by the candle/ruler was transferred to the other dominoes when they were hit. This was not the only force that acted upon the dominoes seeing as each had its own potential energy. As the dominoes fell momentum was also gained throughout the process. Dominoes falling is commonly referred to as the domino affect.

Hardwood Model.

We used the Harwood model of inquiry throughout the making of our rube Goldberg

During our initial proposal we defined our problem: Turning on a speaker using a series of steps.

We began looking for ideas by watching Youtube videos and pictures of other rube Goldberg machine

We started by picking a fist step: a moustrap that ignited a match. Needless to say that idea did not work out so well as a first step, or a step in general. We tweaked the idea and ended up with a different second step, that still involved a moustrap and accomplished what we originally Intended. This was one example of making observations and communication.  We actively changed our steps when we realized they weren't working. We talked about the problems and discussed ways to change them. Our rube Goldberg machine was a collection of ideas from each person in the groups and illustrated collaborative interaction.

                

Our process resembled the Hardwood model rather than a linear model of inquiry, because it   was in constant flux and we were constantly jumping from one process to another depending on what step we were doing, or if we were trying to figure out how to get from one stept to another.

                

This type of expierment is good practice for building patience and practicing problem solving. Though there is not real applicale use for a rube goldberg machine they are fun to build.