Machine makers: ICC physics students construct Rube Goldberg contraptions
FULTON – The most difficult tasks are often the most rewarding. More than 50 physics students in Betsy Chesnutt’s three physics classes at Itawamba Community College learned the joys of complexity over the past several weeks while creating Rube Goldberg machines.
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A Rube Goldberg project we did for our ECE 102 class. Someone calls a cell phone which is on vibrate mode The phone vibrates and slides down a ramp into dominos The chain of dominos falls and knocks a pack of Mentos into a 2L bottle of Diet Coke The two react and the soda gushes out of the bottle and turns a tire on a bike The tire from the bike rotates the pedals and pulls a trigger on a paintball gun The gun shoots paintballs at a skateboard which rolls down a ramp and into a ladder When the skateboard hits it knocks a water bottle off the top of the ladder The water bottle pulls a stick out of a fan and activates it The fan blows a basketball onto a button which launches a rocket The rocket flies into a catch and pulls down our egg drop device
Video Rating: 5 / 5
Check out these machine engineering images:
Rube Goldberg Challenge – Schenectady, NY – 10, Apr – 01
Image by sebastien.b
Rube Goldberg Challenge – Schenectady, NY – 10, Apr – 05
Image by sebastien.b
Rube Goldberg Challenge – Schenectady, NY – 10, Apr – 13
Image by sebastien.b
Check out these machine engineering images:
Rube Goldberg Challenge – Schenectady, NY – 10, Apr – 16
Image by sebastien.b
Rube Goldberg Challenge – Schenectady, NY – 10, Apr – 09
Image by sebastien.b
Rube Goldberg Challenge – Schenectady, NY – 10, Apr – 12
Image by sebastien.b
Inspired by cartoonist Rube Goldberg, college students nationwide compete to design a machine that uses the most complex process to complete a simple task – put a stamp on an envelope, screw in a light bulb, make a cup of coffee – in 20 or more steps. The competition is sponsored by the Purdue University campus chapter of Theta Tau, a professional engineering fraternity. www.purdue.edu
A few nice machine engineering images I found:
Argonne’s Rube Goldberg Machine Contest 2010
Image by Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne’s Rube Goldberg Machine Contest 2010
Image by Argonne National Laboratory
The Rube Goldberg competition, sponsored by Phi Chapter of Theta Tau fraternity, rewards machines that most effectively combine creativity with inefficiency and complexity. The task this year is to dispense an appropriate amount of sanitizer into a hand. The 2010 National contest is March 27 at the Purdue University Armory. www.purdue.edu
Video Rating: 0 / 5
It may not be the fastest food, but teams from around the country will try their best to make a hamburger sandwich in the most inefficient way possible during the 21st annual national Rube Goldberg Machine Contest on April 5 at Purdue University. www.purdue.edu
Video Rating: 4 / 5
National Engineering Month happens every year to promote the importance and fun of engineering to the rest of the world. There are events like Designaplooza (run by the HiSkule Committee at U of T), K’nex Workshop (run by the Ontario Science Centre) and Water for the World (run by Engineers Without Borders and the Public Library). This year, universities all across Ontario decided to build Rube Goldberg Machines, which were connected together via internet (each machine ended in a button, which sent a signal to the next machine). The last machine activated lights at Ontario Science Center displaying “E4TW” – Engineers For The World. The machines were ran at 1:00 pm on Saturday, Feburay 27, 2010.