September 22, 2013
P.O.E., 4th
Rube Goldberg, Group 2
Group Members: Zack Vancamp, Antonio, and Max
Our Rube Goldberg device uses all six simple machines in a 12 by 12 square inch piece of wood. It may seem like a very simple thing to do. It is not, trust me on that. You can run out of room on your board, cannot use an idea because of certain restrictrions, or poor communication between groups. Even though the project has simple in it, it is not. Imagine. A weight drops onto a set mousetrap. The mousetrap snaps onto a popsicle stick, setting a tiny skateboard into action, rolling down and inclined plane. That skateboard drops onto two rows of dominoes. One row leading to nowhere, the other leading to a moousetrap. While that was happening, the first mousetrap sets a marble on a ledge into actrion. That maarble rolls off the ledge into a funnel with piping leading it to a second mousetrap. Attached to that mousetrap is a piece of string that runs through a pulley. Attached to the end of the string is a cup with a marble in it, with a weight attached to the opposite side. Once the second mousetraps snaps the string is yanked, sending the marble rolling to it's next destination,the next group's project. That is Group Two's Rube Goldberg Machine. The six simple machines are lever, inclined machines, screw, pulley, wheel and axle, and wedge. All were used in our project. First, the lever. We used levers multiple times in our machine.The first lever is on the first mousetrap, the metal part that snaps on the mouse. The second lever is the popsicle stick under the skateboard. This lever kicks up the skateboard so it moves down. The third lever is a group of levers. They are the dominoes set off by the skateboard. The fourth is on the second mousetrap, on the metal part that traps the mouse The last lever is the cup between the two pieces of wood by the pulley because the attached weight is like the levers fulcrum, making it snap to drop the marble