Names ______Group ______Period _____

Rube Goldberg Bell Ringing Machine Challenge

100pts.

Item / Points Possible / Points earned
  1. Design and Build a Rube Goldberg Activity-Rube Goldberg Worksheet (individual)
/ 10
  1. Introduction (A,B, and C)
/ 20
  1. Constraints and scoring
/ 20
  1. Draft Design
/ 10
  1. Draft TSL
/ 10
  1. Final TSL
/ 10
  1. Time
/ 5
  1. Evaluation
/ 15

Reuben Lucius Goldberg was an engineer, inventor, cartoonist and sculptor. Born in 1883 in San Francisco, Rube Goldberg began practicing his art skills at the age of four when he traced illustrations from the humorous book History of the United States. At the age of eight, he was obsessed with line drawings and continued to trace from books, newspapers and calendars. He helped a friend with a magazine delivery route, and said once, "I would literally smell the ink on the pages. The pungent aroma gave me a greater thrill than inhaling the fragrance of the most exquisite perfume."

Unfortunately, his artistic tendencies were discouraged by his father, who later sent him to the University of California at Berkeley to study engineering. After graduating in 1904 with a degree in engineering, he briefly helped design sewer systems in San Francisco for $100 a month. He was depressed by the "lethargy of the city employees" and did not wish to be sitting behind the same desk for 40 years, showing false loyalty to corrupt politicians.

Rube quit so that he could draw cartoons for the San Francisco Chronicle for $8 a week. He enthusiastically offered his cartoons to the newspaper, only to later find them discarded in the wastebaskets. Occasionally the editor accepted one, but Rube was required to sweep floors and file pictures from the morgue to stay on the payroll. Then came his big break: as Rube was assigned to sketch athletes during sporting events, the newspaper's publishers were realizing that pictures increased sales. They instituted a color comic section and hired artists (who had inspired Rube years ago) from illustrated magazines like Saturday Evening Post and Life.

Rube Goldberg, 1923, Popular Science Magazine

Rube Goldberg's career was launched. He became the sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Bulletin, and then began working in New York in 1907 for the New York Evening Mail and the New York Sun. He created the characters Lala Palooza, and Mike & Ike ("they look alike"). His cartoon series "Foolish Questions" and "Sideshow" of wacky inventions became nationally syndicated. By 1922, he was earning $100,000 a year. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for a political cartoon warning of the dangers of atomic weapons. The Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. displayed a retrospective exhibition of his life's work in 1970, just weeks before his death. He was the first cartoonist to ever be so honored.

Rube Goldberg's invention cartoons were largely influenced by the "machine age" at the beginning of the century and by the complex new mechanisms invented to simplify life. Just as the last several decades have given us marvelous innovations in computer technology at an extremely fast pace, the same rapid advancement in new inventions was occurring at the turn of the century during the "machine age". Electricity, running water, telephones and the automobile were changing the way people lived and worked. New mechanical inventions for simplifying life were flooding the U.S. patent office. There were inventions for everything from automatic hat tippers to motorized shoe polishers.

Today, as we experience occasional computer crashes, we face a parallel situation to that of Rube Goldberg's day. In the early 1900's, society was caught up in the controversy between the benefits of technology versus the increasing dependency on new machines. There was mistrust, reluctance to change, and a disparity between the few who were financially able to adopt the new technology and the general masses. There were gadgets galore, and Rube Goldberg was fascinated with the modern conveniences. He was a great satirist and saw the humor in it all.

Rube Goldberg spent 55 years drawing cartoons of machines and contraptions. His cartoons depicted simple household items, connected in funny but logical ways to perform a simple task. For instance, his cartoon invention of an automatic garage door opener used a bathtub, a flower, a bumblebee and an athlete. He had an extraordinary style and worked over 30 hours on each invention cartoon. The result was always another magnificent work of fine lines and great attention to detail.

Rube Goldberg believed that most people preferred doing things the hard way instead of using a more simple and direct path to accomplish a goal. In the words of the inventor, the machines were a "symbol of man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to achieve minimal results." His drawings became so well known that Webster's Dictionary defined the term rube goldberg as "accomplishing by extremely complex, roundabout means what seemingly could be done simply."

A Simple Moth Killing Machine


Rube At Work

Rube's likes and dislikes are apparent in his cartoons. He was a heavy cigar smoker and felt a person had a right to pollute the air around them as they saw fit. His opinion of politicians was formed during his early years and influenced by his father's involvement in politics in San Francisco. In many of his cartoons, politicians are depicted as well-dressed, cigar smoking, pot-bellied men blowing a lot of hot air (useful to power the latest mechanical contraption). And certainly, the engineer in him was fascinated with inventions and how things work.

In the last decade of his life, Rube turned to sculpture. While his new art form did not radiate the humor of his invention cartoons, his detailed style was still evident in his life-like depiction of animals, people and objects.

  1. Name ______

Design and Build a Rube Goldberg Activity-Rube Goldberg Worksheet (individual)

Design and Build a Rube Goldberg Activity –
Rube Goldberg Worksheet

Directions

When Rube Goldberg showed his “Self-Operating Napkin” machine to his friend, he said it would not work.

Prove to Rube Goldberg’s friend that the invention will actually work by using the information given and what you know about mechanical advantage and work.

Remember the following equations:

Work (in Joules, J) = Force (Newtons, J) x Distance (m)

Mechanical Advantage = output force / input force

Questions

  1. You raise your spoon of soup 0.15 meters with 2 Newtons of force. How much work did you do? ______
  2. The spoon pulls a string as you move it. How much work (energy) is transferred? ______
  3. The string jerks the ladle, which is a lever. The string has an output force of 10N and an input force of 12N. What is the mechanical advantage?

______

  1. The spoon throws a cracker past a parrot. The Parrot jumps after the cracker, applying force to the perch he is sitting on. The perch spins around throwing the seeds into a pail. The perch is another lever. It has a mechanical advantage of 2. If it would take 0.5 J of work to move the seeds 0.1 m without the lever, how much force will be needed?

______

  1. If the lever is .2m long. How much force is needed with the lever?______
  1. Does the lever require less force? Why? ______
  1. The extra weight in pail pulls a cord, which goes around a pulley and opens and lights an automatic cigar lighter. If the pail can apply 3 N of force to the cord, and the pulley system has a mechanical advantage of 2, how much total force can be applied to the match?

______

  1. The match sets off the rocket, which causes a sickle to cut the string, allowing a pendulum with attached napkin to swing back and forth thereby wiping off your chin. If 3 N of force is needed to strike the match, will the system work? ______
  1. Introduction

We have been learning about simple and compound machines, calculating mechanical advantage and thinking about machines as a part of society. What is a simple machine? A simple machine makes work easier for people. We also know that engineers build complex machines upon a foundation of knowledge of simple machines. Now we will look at how all of these things that we have been studying come together, as we take on the role of the engineers who design machines. We are not going to design just any machine though; we are going to invent Rube Goldberg machines. Rube Goldberg is a contraption that accomplishes a simple task in a fantastically complicated way.

  1. How do simple machines make work easier?

Several steps compose the process of inventing, regardless of the type of machine you want to create. Who knows the first step in the engineering design process? The first step in designing a good solution is to define the need and the audience.

Need: Develop a RG machine to ring a bell

Audience: ages 7-12

After all of these things have been decided, engineers brainstorm design ideas. With your team, you will come up with many different simple machine ideas that could be used to accomplish your final task. Then your engineering team will choose which ones to use and create a plan or drawing of the design.

  1. Why is it important to design your machine first, either as a drawing or a clear idea in your mind?

Next, an engineer thinks about information that might help to solve the problem. Needed information might include the constraints or limitations on the problem, such as materials or time or safety. For this project, we have some materials already available and we want to use at least three simple machines. We definitely have limited time, and we want to make sure our contraption is safe.

  1. Materials
  1. Constraints and Scoring Checklist
  • Must not exceed the following dimensions 60cmx60cmx60cm
  • Measurements: L ______W______H______
  • The machine must begin by dropping a tennis ball.
  • The machine must end with an audible bell ringing.
  • Each simple machine must automatically trigger the next simple machine.
  • Each simple machine must only be used once: Lever (1st, 2nd, and 3rd class), Pulley, Wheel and axle, inclined plane, screw and wedge. (8)
  • List order and type of simple machines used.
  1. Draft a Design:
  2. Be sure to label with the types of simple machines being used.
  3. Also use arrows to show the travel path of energy in your system.
  1. Draft Task Sequence List
  1. The tennis ball is dropped from a height of ______cm
  1. The ______hits the bell causing it to ring.
  1. Final: Task sequence list. This must be detailed and a minimum of 4 steps.
  1. Time of operation ______seconds

Rube Goldberg: Bell Ringing Machine Challenge: 25pts.

Group / Abbreviated task sequence: list the simple machines in order of operation / Dimensions (cm)
L
W
H / Run Time
(s) / Rating
1-5 see below
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Rating 5 all requirements met:

(Time >10s, dimensions all less than 60cm, more than 3 simple machines)

4missing one of the listed criteria

3 missing two of the above criteria

2 missing all three, but still rang the bell

1 incomplete project/does not operate