Rube Goldberg
The "Cars" Inspired Rube Goldberg Machine
Our Machine:
Our assignment was to create a Rube Goldberg machine. We were put into groups of 4 people and had to think of a theme. We decided to do cars, as in the automobile, but we found out that to general, so we chose “Cars”. Not the regular cars, but the Disney Pixar movie “Cars”
We had 15 days invested in this project. We had 3 planning days, 9 building days, and 3 days to make a presentation about our project.
Work Log: (In Days)
Physics:
We used quite a bit of calculations in our machine, such as finding mechanical advantage or velocity. I have compiled all concepts used in our project below. I also put the equations below and how they relate to the machine. First, I will describe the units used in most equations.
Units
Concepts
We learned plenty of Physics concepts in this project, but we also learned some other things about ourselves. There are many things that we did right, as well as things we did wrong.
There are many things that could be improved in my project and me as a person. i’lI admit that that I'm not excellent at being empathetic. I never understood what empathy truly meant. Now that I’ve finished our project, I can see how I will improve my empathy. I will ask people if they feel comfortable about something before I do it, or i'll get to know my team better, so that I know who needs help and give them help before they have to ask and possibly feel embarrassed that they don’t know something.
I really need to work on time management. Our group had to stay in during a couple of lunches to finish our project. This time management also goes hand in hand with bringing things in on time. There were multiple instances where I procrastinated and waited until the last minute to do something, when I should have done it instantly. Next time I will do things as quickly, but efficiently, as possible.
There were some good things that I discovered about myself. I learned how much of a leader I am. During the project, I found myself leading the charge into the unknown, exploring new ideas or different ways to do things. I was assigning people their jobs and coming up with the ideas that my team used. They all listened to me and I felt like I was having fun while still finishing the project.
I had a transformation about halfway through our building. Halfway through the building, each group member evaluated each other on Leadership, Work Ethic, Empathy, etc. I noticed I got a very low score on my attitude and demeanor. I asked my group how I could change that and they responded by saying,”Say thank you more often,” and “Be more polite.” I quickly adapted. I started being more polite, at first just to prove to my team that I could be nice, but then it became a habit. Now I say more polite remarks because of my team. It was amazing noticing the difference in score for attitude in my first cooperation grade and my last one, as there was at least a 4 point difference.
This project was amazing fun to do. My team was amazing and the final outcome was beautiful. We had our ups and we had our downs, but we continued building and working and ended up with a beautiful machine and a trail of friendship.
Our assignment was to create a Rube Goldberg machine. We were put into groups of 4 people and had to think of a theme. We decided to do cars, as in the automobile, but we found out that to general, so we chose “Cars”. Not the regular cars, but the Disney Pixar movie “Cars”
We had 15 days invested in this project. We had 3 planning days, 9 building days, and 3 days to make a presentation about our project.
Work Log: (In Days)
- On the first day, we focused on sketching our design on the board
- On the second day, we make the legs of our project and put on our ramp and the beginning of our pulley
- On the third day, we finished our pulley and make holes for our screw to fit in
- On the fourth day, we put our screw in and attached our lever
- On the fifth day, we attached a zip line with keys attached to it.
- On the sixth day, we made a ramp for a wheel to slide down, as well as secure our lever
- On the seventh day, we attached a pulley to the end of our project. We also worked on making the aesthetics of our machine
- On the eighth day, we scrapped our pulley and attached a staples button to the bottom of our machine
- On the final day we adjusted the zip line and make sure everything worked
Physics:
We used quite a bit of calculations in our machine, such as finding mechanical advantage or velocity. I have compiled all concepts used in our project below. I also put the equations below and how they relate to the machine. First, I will describe the units used in most equations.
Units
- m stands for mass, or the amount of matter in something. Typically measured in Kg (kilograms)
- g stands for acceleration due to gravity. All objects fall to Earth at 9.8m/s^2.
- F stands for force. Force is measured in kgm/s^2, otherwise known as a Neutron. One pound is equal to 4.5 Newtons
- d or h stands for distance/height. Distance/height is measured in meters
- t stands for time and is measured in seconds
- J stands for Joule, a unit of measurement of force
Concepts
- ΔPE. The Δ is the symbol in the greek alphabet,”Delta” meaning change. PE stands for Potential Energy. Potential energy is the amount of energy an object has due to it's height in a gravitational field. NOTE: An object only has potential energy while it is still, NOT when it is moving. The equation for PE is PE=mgh and it's unit is J. We found the potential energy of a car at the start of a ramp and the potential energy of a car at the end of the ramp. We subtracted the initial PE by the final PE and found that the Δ PE was 0.02J
- MA (ideal) MA stands for the Mechanical Advantage of an object. I attached the subscript “ideal” to the end of MA to differentiate ideal MA from real MA (mentioned below) Mechanical Advantage is the measure of how much easier or harder a machine makes something to do. If the MA of a simple machine is greater than one, then it makes thing easier. If it's less than one, then things are harder. Ideal MA is the easiest type of Mechanical Advantage to calculate, as the point of ideal MA is that the only force you care about is gravity. You don’t need to worry about friction. You calculate MA (ideal) with the equation MA(ideal) = distance effort/distance load. We have multiple MA(ideal) equations in our machine. The most notable is our pulley. The way to find the ideal MA of a pulley is to count the number of pulleys, which is one. That means our MA is 1.
- MA (real). Mechanical advantage real works the same as ideal MA, but instead includes friction. You calculate MA (real) with the equation MA(real) = Force load/F effort. We have an example of this in our machine. Our lever’s mechanical advantage (real) is 0.7, meaning that is takes more force to lift something using the machine than without that machine
- Momentum. Momentum is the transfer of energy from one object in motion to another object. The unit for momentum is N*s. The equation is mv=p. We had an example of momentum transfer in which a rolling wheel hits another wheel that is still, which causes the second wheel to roll. The momentum transferred into the second wheel is 0.054N*s.
- Toppling. Toppling is when an object’s center of mass goes outside of it's own base area. Our example of this is when a cup with a weight in it falls. The center of mass is the weight. When the weight gets nudged outside of the base of the cup, the cup will start toppling, or falling.
We learned plenty of Physics concepts in this project, but we also learned some other things about ourselves. There are many things that we did right, as well as things we did wrong.
There are many things that could be improved in my project and me as a person. i’lI admit that that I'm not excellent at being empathetic. I never understood what empathy truly meant. Now that I’ve finished our project, I can see how I will improve my empathy. I will ask people if they feel comfortable about something before I do it, or i'll get to know my team better, so that I know who needs help and give them help before they have to ask and possibly feel embarrassed that they don’t know something.
I really need to work on time management. Our group had to stay in during a couple of lunches to finish our project. This time management also goes hand in hand with bringing things in on time. There were multiple instances where I procrastinated and waited until the last minute to do something, when I should have done it instantly. Next time I will do things as quickly, but efficiently, as possible.
There were some good things that I discovered about myself. I learned how much of a leader I am. During the project, I found myself leading the charge into the unknown, exploring new ideas or different ways to do things. I was assigning people their jobs and coming up with the ideas that my team used. They all listened to me and I felt like I was having fun while still finishing the project.
I had a transformation about halfway through our building. Halfway through the building, each group member evaluated each other on Leadership, Work Ethic, Empathy, etc. I noticed I got a very low score on my attitude and demeanor. I asked my group how I could change that and they responded by saying,”Say thank you more often,” and “Be more polite.” I quickly adapted. I started being more polite, at first just to prove to my team that I could be nice, but then it became a habit. Now I say more polite remarks because of my team. It was amazing noticing the difference in score for attitude in my first cooperation grade and my last one, as there was at least a 4 point difference.
This project was amazing fun to do. My team was amazing and the final outcome was beautiful. We had our ups and we had our downs, but we continued building and working and ended up with a beautiful machine and a trail of friendship.