Hands-on Activity Design Your Own Rube Goldberg Machine

Learning Objectives

After this activity, students should be able to:

• Create practical representations of simple machines (prototypes).
• Follow the steps of the engineering design process.
• Use tools safely.
• Learn the five elements of a technology system: goal, inputs, processes, outputs and feedback.

Educational Standards

Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards.

All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN), a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org).

In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g., by state; within source by type; e.g., science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc.

NGSS: Next Generation Science Standards - Science

International Technology and Engineering Educators Association - Technology

State Standards

Materials List

• examples of simple and complex machines (pulleys, hammer, ramps, bicycle, wheelbarrow, etc.)
• illustrations of Rube Goldberg machines

  

• assorted wood, metals, plastics and composites
• foam core board and extruded foam insulation make good bases as they are light, sturdy, and easy to attach things to
• miscellaneous construction materials such as wire hangers, cardboard, screws, wire, string, glue and tape
• assorted tools, such as screwdrivers, saws, drills and hammers
• poster paper, markers, crayons, pencils, rulers, etc.
• assorted discarded "raw materials," for student prototypes
• assorted materials that students bring from home, which may be returned at project end

Worksheets and Attachments

Pre-Req Knowledge

A familiarity with the six types of simple machines: inclined plane, wedge, screw, lever, wheel and axle, and pulley.

Ability to safely use tools, such as screwdrivers, saws, drills and hammers.

Introduction/Motivation

(Show students a few Rube Goldberg cartoons that feature his crazy inventions.) For 55 years, Rube Goldberg's award winning cartoons satirized machines and gadgets that he saw as excessive. His cartoons combined simple machines and common household items to create complex, wacky and diabolically logical machines that accomplished mundane and trivial tasks.

His inventions became so widely known that Webster's Dictionary added "Rube Goldberg" to its listing, defining it as "a comically involved, complicated invention, laboriously contrived to perform a simple operation." His "inventions," drawn for our pleasure, can actually work. By inventing excessively complex ways to accomplish simple tasks, he entertained us and poked fun at the gadgets designed to make our lives easier. In his words, the machines were a "symbol of humans' capacity for exerting maximum effort to achieve minimal results."

He believed that most people preferred doing things the hard way instead of using simpler, more direct paths to accomplish goals. The resulting inventions are collections of bits and pieces, parts of now useless machines, scraped together to achieve an innovative, imaginative, yet somehow logical contraption to conquer the job at hand.

The following are examples of tasks that can be illustrated using the Rube Goldberg technique: putting toothpaste on a toothbrush; adhering a stamp to a letter; selecting, cleaning, and peeling an apple; turning on a radio; toasting a slice of bread. Can you think of your own?

Procedure

Background

As necessary, review with students the basics of simple machines: inclined plane, wedge, screw, lever, wheel and axle and pulley.

As necessary, provide students with the training to use any tools they need, such as screwdrivers, saws, hot glue guns, drills and hammers.

Preparation

• Gather materials, including those provided by students.
• Make copies of the Student Activity Worksheet.
• Choose a time frame for completion of machines.

With the Students

As a class:

1. Review the types and combinations of simple machines in use around us every day.
2. Brainstorm how simple machines might be incorporated into more complex machines.
3. Brainstorm simple tasks that lend themselves to the project.
4. Look at illustrations of Rube Goldberg machines.
5. Discuss any safety concerns that students must be aware of pertaining to the supplies and tools available to them.
6. Explain requirements and expectations for the assessment (grading) rubric. Provide design constraints and criteria. Perhaps minimum number of steps and/or minimum number of types of simple machines incorporated. Given classroom space constraints, it may be helpful to set a maximum overall volume of the finished machine prototype.
7. Divide the class into groups of students.
8. Have each team identify a basic task and design a machine to accomplish that task in no less then 10 steps.
9. Have each team produce a schematic design, labeling each part and its function, indicating materials, and describing each step needed to accomplish the task. Teams should discuss how
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Vocabulary/Definitions

prototype: A first attempt or early model of a new product or creation. May be revised many times.

schematic: Showing the basic form or layout of something.

Assessment

• Rubric for Performance Assessment (doc)
• Rubric for Performance Assessment (pdf)

Investigating Questions

• How can we build a device that incorporates all the six types of simple machines and accomplishes a basic task in no less then 10 steps?
• How can we represent the process used to complete this design from goal to feedback?
• Does the prototype accomplish the basic task in no less then 10 steps?
• How does the prototype work to accomplish this task in no less then 10 steps?
• Does or could this prototype have a practical application?
• What changes would we make to the prototype based on our testing experiences – both successes and failures - during the design process? How would you make it better, funnier, more reliable, safer? (Engineers ask these questions when they design and improve products and machines.)
• How do we use tools to shape, cut, and/or fabricate elements of the design?

Additional Multimedia Support

Learn more about Rube Goldberg and see examples of his cartoon illustrations at the official Rube Goldberg website: http://www.rubegoldberg.com/.

Refer to the information, lessons and activities of the seventh-grade Simple Machines unit in the TeachEngineering collection.

Learn more about the steps of the engineering design process at: https://www.teachengineering.org/populartopics/designprocess

References

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