Who was Rube Goldberg?
"Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, sculptor and author. Reuben Lucius Goldberg (Rube Goldberg) was born in San Francisco on July 4, 1883. After graduating from the University of California Berkeley with a degree in engineering, Rube went on to work as an engineer for the City of San Francisco Water and Sewers Department.
After six months Rube shifted gears and left the Sewers Department to become an office boy in the sports department of a San Francisco newspaper. While there he began to submit drawings and cartoons to the editor until he was finally published. Rube soon moved from San Francisco to New York to work for the Evening Mail drawing daily cartoons. This led to syndication and a national presence – and the rest is history.
A founding member of the National Cartoonist Society, a political cartoonist and a Pulitzer Prize winner, Rube was a beloved national figure as well as an often-quoted radio and television personality during his sixty year professional career.
Best known for his “inventions”, Rube’s early years as an engineer informed his most acclaimed work. A Rube Goldberg contraption – an elaborate set of arms, wheels, gears, handles, cups and rods, put in motion by balls, canary cages, pails, boots, bathtubs, paddles and live animals – takes a simple task and makes it extraordinarily complicated. He had solutions for How To Get The Cotton Out Of An Aspirin Bottle, imagined a Self-Operating Napkin, and created a Simple Alarm Clock – to name just a few of his hilariously depicted drawings."
http://www.rubegoldberg.com/about
Rube Goldberg's cartoons became our reality in September, 2014. After approximately 4 weeks total working on the project, Patrick Heslip, Sally Jung, Jacob Kennedy and I completed our goal of dropping an Oreo cookie into a glass (bowl) in the most complex, indirect, wasteful, useless, and convoluted way possible. Here it is.
"Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, sculptor and author. Reuben Lucius Goldberg (Rube Goldberg) was born in San Francisco on July 4, 1883. After graduating from the University of California Berkeley with a degree in engineering, Rube went on to work as an engineer for the City of San Francisco Water and Sewers Department.
After six months Rube shifted gears and left the Sewers Department to become an office boy in the sports department of a San Francisco newspaper. While there he began to submit drawings and cartoons to the editor until he was finally published. Rube soon moved from San Francisco to New York to work for the Evening Mail drawing daily cartoons. This led to syndication and a national presence – and the rest is history.
A founding member of the National Cartoonist Society, a political cartoonist and a Pulitzer Prize winner, Rube was a beloved national figure as well as an often-quoted radio and television personality during his sixty year professional career.
Best known for his “inventions”, Rube’s early years as an engineer informed his most acclaimed work. A Rube Goldberg contraption – an elaborate set of arms, wheels, gears, handles, cups and rods, put in motion by balls, canary cages, pails, boots, bathtubs, paddles and live animals – takes a simple task and makes it extraordinarily complicated. He had solutions for How To Get The Cotton Out Of An Aspirin Bottle, imagined a Self-Operating Napkin, and created a Simple Alarm Clock – to name just a few of his hilariously depicted drawings."
http://www.rubegoldberg.com/about
Rube Goldberg's cartoons became our reality in September, 2014. After approximately 4 weeks total working on the project, Patrick Heslip, Sally Jung, Jacob Kennedy and I completed our goal of dropping an Oreo cookie into a glass (bowl) in the most complex, indirect, wasteful, useless, and convoluted way possible. Here it is.
Our first step in the machine was the pulley system. This involves Jacob (chosen purely arbitrarily, he has no special skills that make him any more suited for the pulley-pulling job than the rest of us) pulling on the string, which then causes a wall to raise above the ramp, allowing the car to drive down into the ball bearing. This is the starting step, and begins the entire process automatically. We encountered problems throughout the building process with the pulley, and each time we adjusted accordingly. Near the beginning, we were troubled with how the wall kept sticking to the side of the board, and bumped the car around. We fixed this by adding a small additional wall to the other side of the ramp to make the wall rise straight up.
After the wall rises and releases the marble-driven car, the vehicle rolls down the incline plane and bumps into the ball bearing. We used a ball bearing for this instead of a marble because it had more mass in the same package. The bearing then rolls through the tube. Not much happens there other than that. After that, the ball falls through the pegs, which surprisingly went well no tweaking needed. Then, the ball hits a class 1 lever. This causes the bearing to fall onto the ramp and knock off the blue marble behind it. The ball bearing falls into the hole, and makes a bridge for the blue marble to roll upon. The blue marble falls into a curve, which speeds it up and changes the direction of the marble. It then rolls and hits the large marble, causing it to fall into the cup. The cup is attached to a string, which then is attached to a wedge, which pulls out from underneath the yellow marble. Subsequently, the yellow marble falls, rolls, and knocks over the golf ball. This then rolls and hits the Oreo, which then falls into a glass (bowl).
Concepts
Simple Machines - These are the inclined plane, the wheel and axle, the wedge, the lever, the screw, and the pulley. We used each of these (except the wheel and axle) in our project.
Mechanical Advantage - You cannot make something take less work, but you can still make it easier for you by making it take longer. Mechanical Advantage (usually) refers to making something take more time or distance and less force so it can be done easier. Every one of our simple machines used mechanical advantage, allowing for more interesting stunts within the machine as a whole.
Force - This is any push or pull. When you push a cart, you use force. When you pull a rope, you use force. Measured in Newtons (N), it may very well have been our most standard magnitude to be found. We tried to find it in most of our equations.
Work - This is force applied over a distance. If you push on wall with all your might, but it doesn't budge, you applied force, but you did not apply work. Work is measured in Joules (J), or Newtons (N) per Meter (m). Whenever we were able to find force, we usually were able to find the work along with it.
Speed - Speed is the measure of how fast a given object gets from one place to another in a certain amount of time. Measured in many ways, but for our purposes we usually used meters per second (m/s).
Impulse - The amount of force applied to an object over a certain amount of time. When you increase the amount of time of impact, you decrease the amount of force at a given time. For example, with airbags, the time of impact is increased, therefore dealing less damage to the person. Impulse was very difficult to calculate in this project, because the amount of time in each impact was very short and difficult to measure. Measured in weird units (kgm/s).
Momentum - This is how much energy a moving object carries with it in movement. An object with twice the weight but half the speed will have the same momentum. This was easier to measure than impulse due to the fact that it was fairly easy to find mass and velocity. Measured in the same weird units as impulse.
Reflection
All in all, I believe, and my group can testify, that we did pretty well. We had some trouble in the first half of building due to some clashing of personalities, but by the second half of the building phase and the presentation phase we settled our differences and were able to perform accordingly. One of our Peaks was definitely learning more about the building process. I had built a lot of things with my dad before, but never had such a big role in it as with this project. Of course, this was also one of our Pits. We lacked a whole lot of experience in the understanding of what came after what when designing and building things, so we went out of order to an extent.
Another Peak was learning patience and tolerance. I was really frustrated with some of the group members at first, but I learned eventually that there will always be people that I don't agree with, and I need to learn to deal with that and move along. Our other major Pit, like many other groups, was time management. We definitely could have allocated our time better, and we were always tight on the clock, especially near the end of the project. Overall, I believe I did well on the project. I loved it and I learned a lot.
After the wall rises and releases the marble-driven car, the vehicle rolls down the incline plane and bumps into the ball bearing. We used a ball bearing for this instead of a marble because it had more mass in the same package. The bearing then rolls through the tube. Not much happens there other than that. After that, the ball falls through the pegs, which surprisingly went well no tweaking needed. Then, the ball hits a class 1 lever. This causes the bearing to fall onto the ramp and knock off the blue marble behind it. The ball bearing falls into the hole, and makes a bridge for the blue marble to roll upon. The blue marble falls into a curve, which speeds it up and changes the direction of the marble. It then rolls and hits the large marble, causing it to fall into the cup. The cup is attached to a string, which then is attached to a wedge, which pulls out from underneath the yellow marble. Subsequently, the yellow marble falls, rolls, and knocks over the golf ball. This then rolls and hits the Oreo, which then falls into a glass (bowl).
Concepts
Simple Machines - These are the inclined plane, the wheel and axle, the wedge, the lever, the screw, and the pulley. We used each of these (except the wheel and axle) in our project.
Mechanical Advantage - You cannot make something take less work, but you can still make it easier for you by making it take longer. Mechanical Advantage (usually) refers to making something take more time or distance and less force so it can be done easier. Every one of our simple machines used mechanical advantage, allowing for more interesting stunts within the machine as a whole.
Force - This is any push or pull. When you push a cart, you use force. When you pull a rope, you use force. Measured in Newtons (N), it may very well have been our most standard magnitude to be found. We tried to find it in most of our equations.
Work - This is force applied over a distance. If you push on wall with all your might, but it doesn't budge, you applied force, but you did not apply work. Work is measured in Joules (J), or Newtons (N) per Meter (m). Whenever we were able to find force, we usually were able to find the work along with it.
Speed - Speed is the measure of how fast a given object gets from one place to another in a certain amount of time. Measured in many ways, but for our purposes we usually used meters per second (m/s).
Impulse - The amount of force applied to an object over a certain amount of time. When you increase the amount of time of impact, you decrease the amount of force at a given time. For example, with airbags, the time of impact is increased, therefore dealing less damage to the person. Impulse was very difficult to calculate in this project, because the amount of time in each impact was very short and difficult to measure. Measured in weird units (kgm/s).
Momentum - This is how much energy a moving object carries with it in movement. An object with twice the weight but half the speed will have the same momentum. This was easier to measure than impulse due to the fact that it was fairly easy to find mass and velocity. Measured in the same weird units as impulse.
Reflection
All in all, I believe, and my group can testify, that we did pretty well. We had some trouble in the first half of building due to some clashing of personalities, but by the second half of the building phase and the presentation phase we settled our differences and were able to perform accordingly. One of our Peaks was definitely learning more about the building process. I had built a lot of things with my dad before, but never had such a big role in it as with this project. Of course, this was also one of our Pits. We lacked a whole lot of experience in the understanding of what came after what when designing and building things, so we went out of order to an extent.
Another Peak was learning patience and tolerance. I was really frustrated with some of the group members at first, but I learned eventually that there will always be people that I don't agree with, and I need to learn to deal with that and move along. Our other major Pit, like many other groups, was time management. We definitely could have allocated our time better, and we were always tight on the clock, especially near the end of the project. Overall, I believe I did well on the project. I loved it and I learned a lot.