Stay Home Science with McWane

RUBE GOLDBERG

Materials:Paper, cardstock, aluminum foil, wax paper, construction paper, index cardsPaper towel or toilet paper tubes (hmmm, a scarce resource at the moment – you can make a substitute by rolling up paper into cylinders)Tape, paperclips, brads, binder clips, rubber bands, twist or zip ties, washers/boltsCrafting supplies – craft sticks, felt, string, yarn, buttons, pipe cleanersPaper or plastic cups, yogurt containers or Tupperware (and lids from same)Paper or plastic bags, egg cartons, balloonsRound stuff – marbles, balls, battle caps, pencils, Pringles cansDominoes, wood blocks, LEGO, action figures, Hot Wheels carsCorrugated cardboard (with scissors, it can be formed into whatever size/shape you need)A shoe, a book, a spoon, a sock, a hairbrush, a spatula... almost any weird item

DO NOT USE: glass, ceramic, fire, liquids, foods, glue, household chemicals, glitter

Method:Start with deciding your ultimate goal. Choose something very simple that you could do yourself with a minimal gesture. Dropping a marble or some other small object into a cup is a good one, but feel free to think of your own purpose for your contraption.

Experiment:

The Challenge:Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist who drew humorous pictures of hugely complicated and impractical devices, that ended up performing minor tasks. The kind you could easily do without the help of any machine. Naturally, many amateur engineers have set about actually building devices like this.

A good example is this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHwDf8njVfo) starring a kid engineer (and his dog). See the Links section on the next page for more really mind-blowing videos.

Now we’re going to challenge you and your junior scientists to do the same. Your goal: take a whole lot of Stuff from around your home (see below for a few suggestions). Design, test and create a device that will make a lot happen, with one small final result. The videos below may offer some inspiration, but use your creativity.

The Links:Who was Rube Goldberg? - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg

And the official Rube Goldberg site - https://www.rubegoldberg.com/

Venerable science center The Exploratorium gives more info about this experiment https://www.exploratorium.edu/tinkering/projects/chain-reaction

Lots of videos of super elaborate Rube machines https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/best-rube-goldberg-machines/

More Rube video https://coolmaterial.com/roundup/rube-goldberg-machines/

A device used for the song "This Too shall Pass" by OK Go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w

The Science:Some engineering tips for building your machine:

1. Engineers love blueprints. Start by sketching where you want to put various pieces.

2. Test out various parts of your idea. Say you want to have a ball roll down a surface and hit something as part of your machine. What angle to you have to set the surface at? Do you have to add parts to steer the ball towards its target? How will you start the ball rolling? Experimenting will show you the answers.

3. Think of how to connect different parts. For example, once you’re satisfied with the ball rolling mentioned in #2, consider what you could build to start the ball rolling, and how those pieces have to be placed. String makes for a good way to connect parts.

4. Potential energy is our friend. If an object is moving it is what’s called kinetic energy. If you grab something and lift it, but hold it still, it has potential energy; if you were to let go, it would fall (changing the potential energy into kinetic energy), thanks to gravity. The higher you hold it, the more potential energy it has. How’s that help with your device? To set off the chain reaction of movement, one trick is to start your device high up, and let gravity pull things down. Another trick: have a relatively massive item precariously balanced, so that it can be easily knocked over, triggering a lot of kinetic energy into your device. Or, you could precariously balance a small object that will require only a little energy to get it started.

5. Falling, tipping over, rolling and sliding are some of the basic movements. Feel free to try others: flinging objects (like a catapult), swinging, or moving up with a pully system.

6. As engineers well know, failure will happen and multiple attempts will certainly be needed

Stay Home Science with McWane

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