By: Amy Palmer & Lauren Lipsett Rube Goldberg History Rube Goldberg was born July 4, 1883 and passed away on December 7, He was a cartoonist, sculptor, and author. During his well lived life he spent 55 years of it drawing cartoons, machines, and contraptions. These drawings were largely influenced by the “machine age”. He also won many awards throughout his life, including the 1948 Pulitzer Prize. Rube would draw very elaborate machines to make simple tasks extraordinarily complicated. Although he only drew these machines they are now very popular and are being built all over the world. The Webster’s Dictionary defined the term rube goldberg as “accomplishing by extremely complex, roundabout means what seemingly could be done simply.”. Some of his drawings of machines included tasks like: How To Get The Cotton Out Of An Aspirin Bottle, Self-Operating Napkin, a Simple Alarm Clock 1 st Energy Conversion: Chemical Energy to Light/Thermal Energy. Candle burns the string. 2 nd Energy Conversion: Elastic Energy to Kinetic Energy. The string releases the ball. 3 rd Energy Conversion: Gravitational Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy. Cup is knocked over to release gumball. 4 th Energy Conversion: Gravitational Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy. The gumball drops into the cup on the lever. 5 th Energy Conversion: Kinetic Energy to Sound Energy. The gumball released from the cup hits the bell and creates sound. 6 th Energy Conversion: Kinetic Energy to Electrical Energy. The last domino starts the fan. 7 th Energy Conversion: Electrical Energy to Kinetic Energy. The fan blows on ping-pong ball and it starts to roll. 8 th Energy Conversion: Gravitational Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy. The last domino pulls string which releases the 2 balls (metal and gumball). 11 th Energy Conversion: Gravitational Potential Energy to Kinetic Energy. The gumball hits the cup to launch nerds down the funnel. 9 th Energy Conversion: Kinetic Energy to Elastic Energy. The metal ball lands in the cup to compress the spring. 10 th Energy Conversion: Gravitational Potential Energy to Electrical/Light Energy. The cup is weighted down by the ball to turn on the light. Newton’s Laws of Motion First Law of Motion: An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion will stay in motion with the same velocity and direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. This law is also often call “the law of inertia”. Second Law of Motion: Acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass. The greater the mass of the object, the greater the amount of force needed to accelerate the object. Third Law of Motion: For every action there is and equal and opposite reaction. Types of Energy Energy is the capacity for doing work and it exists in many forms, including: Kinetic Energy Gravitational Potential Energy Thermal/Heat Energy Chemical Energy Electrical Energy Sound Energy Nuclear Energy Law of Conservation of Energy This law can be stated as “energy can neither be created nor destroyed”. However, it can be transformed from one type to another. Simple Machines Simple machines are designed to makes tasks more simple or easy. They do this by creating a greater output force then the input force. The ratio of these forces is called the mechanical advantage. To create the best simple machine no or little friction/elasticity should be present. This makes the input force even smaller to create a larger output force. Some examples of simple machines are: Lever (seesaws, wheelbarrows, ect.) Wheel & Axle (ferris wheels, tires, ect.) Inclined Plane (ramp, ect.) Wedge (axes, knives, chisels, ect.) Screw Pulley The Candy Contraption Information: The simple task of our Rube Goldberg machine is to dispense candy (nerds) into someone’s hand. The task should happen without any human interference. This task is done in a very complex way that uses many types of simple machines including inclined planes. It also includes 11 energy conversions. How does it work? You may think that this machine looks complicated but it really isn’t. It just involves many steps to complete one simple task. These steps are explained below: 1)The candle is lit to burn the string that is holding back a ball on an elastic. 2)The ball flings forward to hit the bucket which releases the metal ball down the ramp. 3)The metal ball then knocks over the cup. 4)Which pulls the string with candy attached to it down to release the gumball down the ramp. 5)The gumball lands onto a lever that launches another gumball 6)The ball then hits a bell. 7)It then continues on to knock over dominos. 8)The last domino turns a fan on. 9)The fan blows a ping-pong ball which knocks over more dominos. 10)The last domino is attached to string which is attached to a candy holding 2 balls in place (metal and gum). 11)When the string is pulled down the balls are releases. 12)The metal ball rolls down the ramp into a cup which pulls on string to turn on a light. 13)The other gumball rolls down the ramp at the same time to hit a cup at the end of it. 14)When the gumball hits the cup which launches the nerds down a tube and into the lucky person’s hand. Equations Gravitational Potential Energy is the energy an object possesses because of its position in a gravitational field. The equation to calculate it is, E g =mgh. In this equation ‘m’ is the mass of the object, ‘g’ is the gravitational constant on Earth (9.8 m/s 2 ), and ‘h’ is the height of the object. Kinetic Energy is energy of motion. When you calculate the Kinetic Energy of something is it telling you the energy it possesses because of its motion. The equation to calculate it is, E k =½mv 2. In this equation ‘m’ is the mass of the object, and ‘v’ is the velocity of the object. To calculate the force of an object you use the formula F=ma. In this equation ‘m’ is the mass of the object, and ‘a’ is the acceleration of the object. Since Rube Goldberg Machines are not classified as efficient, they therefore involve a large amount of work. The work of a machine can be calculated by adding all the various sections of the it. To do this the equation W=F∆d or W=F(cosθ)∆d would be used. The ‘F’ is the force, the ‘∆d’ is the change in distance, and the ‘cosθ’ is used if the force is applied on an angle. Reference List Conservation Laws. (n.d.). Retrieved May 22, 2014, from Gravitational Potential Energy. (n.d.). Retrieved May 18, 2014, from History of Rube Goldberg. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2014, from Jones, A. (n.d.). About.com. Retrieved May 18, 2014, from Six Kinds of Simple Machines : Kinetic Energy. (n.d.). Retrieved May 18, 2014, from Louviere, G. (2010, June 24). Newton's Laws of Motion. Retrieved May 18, 2014, from Rube Goldberg Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2014, from Bio.com: #awesm=~oEWNfeAbdFwBDx Rube Goldberg: Biography. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2014, from What are the different forms of energy? (n.d.). Retrieved May 18, 2014, from