Carissa's 7th grade pre-ap science class was assigned (or should I say, the parents were assigned) the creation of a Rube Goldberg Machine using all 6 of the simple machines. Needless to say, this was anything but "easy".
Thanks to Dennis, we were able to complete the task at hand, and Carissa's project was the only project that didn't require help after the initial action was induced. The project had to include all six simple machines; which for those of you who need a reminder, as I did are: incline, screw, pulley, wheel and axle, lever, and wedge.
To work her machine, we created it as follows: Poured water into a tube that started on an "incline" that moved into the shape of a "screw" to create force. The water then dripped into a hat that is attached to a "pulley" and when the water weighed down the hat, the pulley turned the "wheel and axle" to drop the ball onto the "lever". The lever is set up like a teeter-totter with a "wedge" on the tip that when lifted by the lever, flipped the light switch. Had we not been working with water, we could have done something really cool and created electricity to the light switch to turn something on, but we decided it was a bit ambitious and a bit on the dangerous side.
Carissa's final grade was an 85% due to points being deducted for being over the 50cm height limit and the wedge did not significantly enough resemble a proper wedge. (we got tired and didn't make the bottom big enough to really look like a wedge) I must say, being a prideful parent, that this news was a bit disturbing with how much work went into the project and viewing her classmates attempts at this project (Yikes!). Oh well, a "B" is "not terrible" and since the class is a pre-ap class, it technically counts as an "A", so I'll take it with a smile.
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Thanks to Dennis, we were able to complete the task at hand, and Carissa's project was the only project that didn't require help after the initial action was induced. The project had to include all six simple machines; which for those of you who need a reminder, as I did are: incline, screw, pulley, wheel and axle, lever, and wedge.
To work her machine, we created it as follows: Poured water into a tube that started on an "incline" that moved into the shape of a "screw" to create force. The water then dripped into a hat that is attached to a "pulley" and when the water weighed down the hat, the pulley turned the "wheel and axle" to drop the ball onto the "lever". The lever is set up like a teeter-totter with a "wedge" on the tip that when lifted by the lever, flipped the light switch. Had we not been working with water, we could have done something really cool and created electricity to the light switch to turn something on, but we decided it was a bit ambitious and a bit on the dangerous side.
Carissa's final grade was an 85% due to points being deducted for being over the 50cm height limit and the wedge did not significantly enough resemble a proper wedge. (we got tired and didn't make the bottom big enough to really look like a wedge) I must say, being a prideful parent, that this news was a bit disturbing with how much work went into the project and viewing her classmates attempts at this project (Yikes!). Oh well, a "B" is "not terrible" and since the class is a pre-ap class, it technically counts as an "A", so I'll take it with a smile.
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