Lately in class we have been starting to construct  a Rube Goldberg machine and each piece of the machine had to be a metaphor for a revolution as well as everything has to have a steampunk aesthetic and we also had to include a circuit.

We started off with getting a revolution to base our machine off of and finding all the key events, the cause and consequence of them and how they relate to Crane Brinton’s Theory.

We got the Meiji Restoration as our revolution. The Meiji Restoration was the restoration of imperial rule in Japan and the advancement of Japanese technology. It was a bit annoying to find the correct information because we thought we found the right information but then everything didn’t make sense when we tried to explain the key events in chronological order. So, thanks to an amazing YouTube video I discovered last year we determined the correct events and pretty much what happened during the time period that related to the revolution. We also had to include our plan for the metaphors and how we were going to make the machine Steampunk.

After that we began the construction of our machine.

We started off with building the base of the actual machine.

After that I designed the first part of our machine which is the gates. I looked at traditional Japanese torii gates and determined a common design which I used as the arch way for the gates. Then Calum, who is in my group, used his circuit kit to design a circuit that to open the gate to release two gears that would roll down a ramp. The gate opening and symbolizes the opening of Japan’s borders and allowing three countries free reign of the country. The gears represent the two city states that were angered with this and they decided to band together and restore imperial rule to Japan. Imperial rule in Japan pretty much means giving full political power to the emperor.

The next part of the machine that we constructed is to symbolize the restoration of imperial rule. The gears will hit the fist which will dislodge it from the post sending it upwards and releasing a bottle containing water. That water will then pour down into a funnel which will send the water down to a glass.

Then, the glass will tip the scale sending a badge up symbolizing a new constitution which gave more civil rights and liberties. The badge will then hit a gear which will then move to hit another, bigger gear. That symbolizes Japan growing its military and making it more powerful. Then the bigger gear will trigger a map to unfold symbolizeing new lands being conquered by Japan’s military. The map will then land on one end of the scale pushing a piece of sushi into a tea mug symbolizeing Japan and Britain forming an alliance. The last part of the machine is the tea triggering an alka seltzer to drop into a cup with green water symbolizeing the death of the emperor by sickness.

Making certain parts of the machine was quite difficult especially making the map open and weigh down a scale so the sushi would roll into the tea cup as well as making the water pouring into the funnel because we had to get the right measurements.

On top of all this we also have to make a video explaining the revolution, the metaphors and the creation of our machine. Today we had to hand in a story board explaining everything we are going to include in our video, which will be used in our Unit end blog post as well as an aide when we present the machine at an exhibition.