The past month has been a big one in the history of the world. Ukraine has been invaded by Russia, Covid is still around, and the Sha Town Turkey Burgers finished first* in Globals at Destination Imagination (more on that in a upcoming blog).

*Disclaimer (they did not finish first)

Recently I just wrapped up my most recent scimatics project; Metaphor Machines and today ill tell you about it. I had very little experience with Rube Goldberg machines in the past. I had looked at simple machines like levers, pulleys and all, way back in grade 5, and I remember enjoying learning about making machines to autonomously complete tasks. The machine would be a metaphor for the scientific method, which means that certain parts of the machine must include a reference for each part of the scientific method. Another part of this project was learning about electricity and circuitry, and included in the rube Goldberg machine would be two electrical circuits that included switches and lightbulbs.

 

Like any PLP project, after launch, we go into building knowledge. In building knowledge we learnt about static and kinetic energy, positive and negative charges and how charges are transferred. We experimented multiple times with parallel and series circuits using Christmas tree lightbulbs. We learnt how to use a ammeter to measure current and voltage and then calculated resistance with those. Then to make a proper draft for the final machine, we had to learn about scaling and drafting on a website called khan academy.

During the develop and critique stage, it was finally time to start putting our ideas on paper and assembling our Rube Goldberg machine. Each member of the group had to come up with they’re own design for the blueprint and once we had finished those, we came together to create a group blueprint for our final machine. My group decided to use my design, with a couple of adjustments. After we had a blueprint, and circuit designs for our 2 circuits, we got to work.

after a couple classes of work, we had completed our design. I was super pleased about how the functionality worked. Ill be honest, it wasn’t the most visually appealing, compared to others, but it worked great with very little malfunctions. Here’s a video of it in all of its glory:

Tap here for the video!

 

 

Now the projects over, and im genuinely sad. I really enjoyed making the machine. Rube Goldberg machines astonish me. They are the most impractical, complicated things ever, composed of mostly simple machines. At the end of every project I come back and look at my project start mind map. I love doing this, because it shows how much I’ve learnt (and I also like laughing at my past self for not knowing simple stuff that I know now). Here’s my project start mind map and my project end mind map

All in all, this project was a blast, probably my favourite project to date in Scimatics and I hope the next one is even better. That’s all for me, my name is Colton, and have yourself a very nice day.