2011-2012 Rube Goldberg Machines

Back in December, we used what we had learned about simple machines to create our own mini- Rube Goldberg machines in which we made up different steps using simple machines to perform a simple task. After brainstorming task ideas and deciding on which one we would attempt, each of us met with our creative team to design our machine.


When we finished drafting our machine design and writing out all the steps we expected our machine to go through (in our science notebooks), we began assembling our machines. Along the way, we recorded changes we had to make and reflected on our progress through focused free-writes. Finally, after we presented our machines to the class, we blogged about our experience.


For each of the videos below, you will find links to our blog entries where we blogged about our experiences. If you watch all the videos (which we hope you do), you will notice some of our machines did not successfully accomplish the tasks we intended. We learned that this doesn't mean we failed with our machines; instead, this just means it would have taken more time than we had during class to revise and test out the machine until we got it to work.

Machine #1

Task: Pour Cereal into a Bowl  

by Jacob, Madison, and Sarah 

Jacob's blog: http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/Jacob1379/how-to-pour-cereal-in-a-bowl/

Madison's blog: http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/Madison842/machine-reflection/

Sarah's blog: http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/Sarah1040/how-to-pour-cereal-into-a-bowl/

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Machine #2

Task: Pop a Balloon

by Brock, Brooke, and Jaclyn

Brock's blog:  http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/Brock82/how-to-pop-a-balloon/

Brooke's blog: http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/Brooke386/how-to-pop-a-balloon-2/

Jaclyn's blog:  http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/jaclyn37/pop-a-balloon/

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Machine #3

Task: Take a Tissue out of Its Box

by Emily, Jared, and Landon

Emily's blog: http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/emily1387/machine-reflection-in-science-to-get-a-tissue-out-of-a-tissue-box/

Jared's blog: http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/Jared326/machine-reflection-2/

Landon's blog:  http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/Landon111/how-to-take-a-tissiu-out-of-a-box/

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Machine #4

Task: Staple Paper

by Caleb, Emma, and Myka

Caleb's blog: http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/Caleb456/machine-reflection-part-1/

Emma's blog: http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/Emma994/how-to-staple-a-paper/

Myka's blog: http://kidblog.org/PVRoom121/Myka10/staple-a-piece-of-paper/