Introduction
Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist famous for creating diagrams that showed an extremely complicated, complex way to accomplish simple, ordinary tasks.
Clip art courtesy of Rube Goldberg Gallery.
Task
You will be designing and building a working Rube Goldberg machine, a very complicated machine to perform a simple everyday task. You will keep a journal of your progress in your ePortfolio. Today’s task is the research step of the Rube Goldberg assignment.
Process:
- Open up your blog and add a new post titled “Rube Goldberg and Simple Machines”.
- Review sample Rube Goldberg cartoons at the Official Rube Goldberg site and the Rube Goldberg Gallery. Find out who Rube Goldberg was and how he constructed his inventions. Write a paragraph telling about Rube Goldberg. Include a picture of either Mr. Goldberg or one of his drawings or inventions. Cite the source of the picture.
- Create a heading in the body of the post titled “Journal Entry: Energy Transfer and Simple Machine Learning”.
- Locate definitions for each of the 6 simple machines. Write an explanation about each of the simple machines in your own words. The six simple machine definitions may be a bulleted list.
- For each simple machine, provide instruction for calculation of mechanical advantage.
- For each simple machine, upload a picture depicting the simple machine.
- Write a brief description of types of energy and how energy changes.
Resources
The following sites are to be used for reviewing information about simple machines and mechanical advantage. These sites also have good pictures to download. Do not plagiarize text and remember to cite the source of pictures.
- Simple Machines
- Elements of Machines
- Simple Machines Glossary
- Simple Machines – Mechanical Advantage
- COSI- Simple Machines
- Mechanical Advantage of Simple Machines
- Types of Energy
- Energy
- Energy Changes
Evaluation
You will be evaluated on how well you complete this task. Your ePortfolio needs to include:
- A paragraph about Rube Goldberg.
- A list of simple machines and how they work, mechanical advantages, and pictures.
- A list of energy types and transfer mechanisms
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