Description of what I did for the project: I was the builder. Where my team or group wanted the pieces of wood to be built I screwed them in to the right places with the power drill. I also cut a bunch of pieces of wood with the saw so that the pieces would be the right size for the machine. What ever my team wanted me to build on the machine that's what I did. Another thing I did was finishing the last five steps of the blue prints. For every square or unit on the graph paper represented as one inch on the rube Goldberg machine.
The Rube Goldberg Simple Machines: The simple machines we use was a lever in step 9. In step 2 we used a screw. Step 5 and 10 we used pulleys. We also used a lot of inclined planes in step 1,3,4,and 6. Another simple machine we used was a wedge.
Concepts: The first simple machine that started our Rube Goldberg machine to function was the inclined plane. An inclined plane is a ramp that moves an object. Because of the slanted surface a smaller effort force was needed to move the steel marble. The mechanical advantage of this inclined plane has a length of 10inches divided by its height which is 2inches. The length of this inclined plane could never be shorter then its height. In order to determine the mechanical advantage dividing the length of 10 by the height of 2 gives us a mechanical advantage of 5. The second simple machine was the screw which is another inclined plane wrapped around a cylinder to for a spiral. The screw rotates and with each turn it caused the ball to build up speed. The third and fourth simple machine used the pulley and wedge. The wedge is a triangular object that held up the cup so the pulley the marble went into the cup the cup went down and the wedge hit another steel marble creating another energy transfer. The last and final simple machine was the lever. The lever is like a seesaw that moves up and/or down. In our rube Goldberg our lever was level and then it went down when the steel marble hit it.
The Rube Goldberg Machine: The rube Goldberg machine starts by pushing a small steel marble down an inclined plane. Then the ball rolls in a screw. Then the small steel marble hits a slightly bigger steel marble making an energy transfer. The slightly bigger marble rolls down another two inclined planes and through a tube. The ball then falls into a cup attached with a pulley and wedge. The cup falls down and the wedge hits a big steel marble that rolls down a tube. The marble hits a lever and falls into another cup attached to a pulley and the flag raises.
Reflection: The things that were positive was that the machine worked perfectly at the end. When I was locked in I was unstoppable in my work and was working very productively and that's when I got the most work done. I think our group worked well together and had fun while doing the project. The things that were negatives was that I got easily distracted and couldn't focus for a long period of time with my group. Instead I went to other groups and helped them for a little bit and then I just kept talking to other people instead of working productively with my group at times. I will improve my focusing and stay on task.