Our first project of the year is the Rube Goldberg Machine. This is a video of my group's machine working. We spent 16 days on this machine. The first couple days were planning days and then the fourth through twelve days were building days. The last couple days were presentation days where we worked on presenting our machine to the class and to judges. The Rube Goldberg machine has at least ten steps and we needed at least five out of the six simple machines. We also needed four energy transfers. These machines are very complex and serve the simple task of ringing a bell. Doing this was a thrilling experience and I learned a lot about physics.
Mechanical Advantage- how much easier a tool makes something or how much further you have to push. We used this in our project for the first inclined plane which was 5.3.
Force- the push or pull on an object. It is classified as Newtons and we used this by the baking soda and vinegar putting a force of 0.269 newtons on the cup.
Velocity- the rate of a covered distance in a direction. The velocity of the train going down the train tracks is 0.8 m/s. Also, we got velocity by dividing the change in distance over the change in time.
Momentum- the tendency of moving objects to keep moving. It is calculated by multiplying the mass and velocity.
Acceleration- the rate of change of an object's motion. In other words, speeding up or slowing down. We used this by the acceleration of the train going down the train tracks is 1.1 m/s^2. We got this by dividing the change in velocity over the change in time.
Work- the amount of energy put into something. It is calculated by multiplying the force and distance.
Kinetic Energy- energy due to motion. When the green ball hits the lever, all of its kinetic energy is transferred to the lever.
Potential Energy- energy an object has due to its height and positioning gravitational field. When the marble is inside the balloon, it has potential energy.
Mass- the amount of matter. The train was 55 grams.
Force- the push or pull on an object. It is classified as Newtons and we used this by the baking soda and vinegar putting a force of 0.269 newtons on the cup.
Velocity- the rate of a covered distance in a direction. The velocity of the train going down the train tracks is 0.8 m/s. Also, we got velocity by dividing the change in distance over the change in time.
Momentum- the tendency of moving objects to keep moving. It is calculated by multiplying the mass and velocity.
Acceleration- the rate of change of an object's motion. In other words, speeding up or slowing down. We used this by the acceleration of the train going down the train tracks is 1.1 m/s^2. We got this by dividing the change in velocity over the change in time.
Work- the amount of energy put into something. It is calculated by multiplying the force and distance.
Kinetic Energy- energy due to motion. When the green ball hits the lever, all of its kinetic energy is transferred to the lever.
Potential Energy- energy an object has due to its height and positioning gravitational field. When the marble is inside the balloon, it has potential energy.
Mass- the amount of matter. The train was 55 grams.
Reflection
Many hours went into building our Rube Goldberg Machine and it turned out great. A couple things went poorly though. While we were putting the screws into the ramp, when we tested it the marbles would get stuck on the screws. Another thing that went poorly is that we needed a lot of time to think about the project after the ramp with screws because we didn't have enough room. When we put the funnels and volcano in, it went really well. My group was very proud of what we had done and were really excited to show off our project. We resolved all of our issues through teamwork and constructive advice from Mr. Williams and our other classmates. I learned a few things myself and new skills for the future. First, I learned that patience is key and when something doesn't work you can always fix it somehow or someway. Also, I learned a lot about teamwork. My group got a lot more work done when we were consulting with each other and were on the same page. We could have done a few things better. One thing we could have done better was making a more detailed and well thought schematic so we didn't have to think of what to do halfway through our project and waste time. Another thing is our calculations. They were very difficult to find and it needed a lot of focus. In the future, I will try to do better to understand the physics of how things work. Some of the high moments of our project were very gratifying and fun. When something worked that we had been working on for awhile, we got very excited. An example of this is when the whole project worked. Every time we tried the project, one or two small things went wrong like a marble would get stuck in the screw or the balloon would not pop or it would pop but the marble would fall over the edge of the other ramp. When the entire thing worked, my group was ecstatic. While working on the project, there were a few low moments. When we finished the ramp with screws we did not know what to do after that. Mr. Williams gave us a great idea of bringing everything to the top of the board through a pulley and it worked! This project taught me a lot and in the process I enjoyed it.