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The Milk Man
This project is called a Rube Goldberg Machine. A Rube Goldberg Machine does a task that is normally simple by overly complicating it. So in this case The Milk Man, which is the name of this Rube Goldberg Machine stirs milk and coco powder to make chocolate milk. Usually making chocolate milk isn't that complex, just get a spoon and stir yourself, but since this is a Rube Goldberg it makes the completion of this task more complex. We made this task more complex by adding machines and mechanisms that eventually lead up to the end result of stirring up chocolate milk. The process this Rube Goldberg goes through to make chocolate milk can be simplified in to 10 steps.
Step 1; A pulley is used to lift up a weight(mass). This mass strikes a lever as it's going up.
Step 2; Do to one end of the lever having struck by the mass the other end falls down creating a inclined plane(ramp) Similar to how a seesaw works.
Step 3; A car was sitting on one end on the lever. So when the lever became an inclined plane the car rolled down it onto another inclined plane and kept going.
Step 4; Near and above the second inclined plane there is another lever that has marbles sitting on it. This lever is held up by a Lego that is on the second inclined plane. When the car hits the Lego as it's rolling down the left side of the lever falls downwards. With the lever now becoming a inclined plane because the left side of the lever is lower than the right the marbles roll down. The marbles roll down the inclined plane until they get to a hole in the second inclined plane. The marbles fall through this hole which leads to the next step.
Step 5; The marbles that went down hole then go down a series of three incline planes. These marbles hit larger balls along the way so by the end of this step regular marbles, large marbles and a tennis ball will be rolling down. After the marbles go down the first inclined plane they hit two larger marbles on the second inclined plane making them roll. After the second incline plane the marbles and larger marbles hits a tennis ball that is sitting on a third incline plane. All the balls go down the third and final incline plane into a blue cup.
Step 6; The added weight in the cup activates a pulley which lifts up a wedge on the other end of the pulley.
Step 7; This wedge kept a lacrosse ball in place so once it's lifted up and away the ball rolls and falls off the tiny incline plane it was on.
Step 8; The lacrosse ball has a string on it so as the ball moves it pulls the string that is attached to it. This string is on a pulley system so when the string moves the pulley is activated.
Step 9; The other end of the pulley is attached to a switch. The pulley pulls on the switch so the switch is flipped.
Step 10; The switch turns on a motor. The motor spins the two spoons that are attached to it. These two spoons are angled so they make a screw. The screw pushes the milk up while stirring it making the final result of chocolate milk.
Step 1; A pulley is used to lift up a weight(mass). This mass strikes a lever as it's going up.
Step 2; Do to one end of the lever having struck by the mass the other end falls down creating a inclined plane(ramp) Similar to how a seesaw works.
Step 3; A car was sitting on one end on the lever. So when the lever became an inclined plane the car rolled down it onto another inclined plane and kept going.
Step 4; Near and above the second inclined plane there is another lever that has marbles sitting on it. This lever is held up by a Lego that is on the second inclined plane. When the car hits the Lego as it's rolling down the left side of the lever falls downwards. With the lever now becoming a inclined plane because the left side of the lever is lower than the right the marbles roll down. The marbles roll down the inclined plane until they get to a hole in the second inclined plane. The marbles fall through this hole which leads to the next step.
Step 5; The marbles that went down hole then go down a series of three incline planes. These marbles hit larger balls along the way so by the end of this step regular marbles, large marbles and a tennis ball will be rolling down. After the marbles go down the first inclined plane they hit two larger marbles on the second inclined plane making them roll. After the second incline plane the marbles and larger marbles hits a tennis ball that is sitting on a third incline plane. All the balls go down the third and final incline plane into a blue cup.
Step 6; The added weight in the cup activates a pulley which lifts up a wedge on the other end of the pulley.
Step 7; This wedge kept a lacrosse ball in place so once it's lifted up and away the ball rolls and falls off the tiny incline plane it was on.
Step 8; The lacrosse ball has a string on it so as the ball moves it pulls the string that is attached to it. This string is on a pulley system so when the string moves the pulley is activated.
Step 9; The other end of the pulley is attached to a switch. The pulley pulls on the switch so the switch is flipped.
Step 10; The switch turns on a motor. The motor spins the two spoons that are attached to it. These two spoons are angled so they make a screw. The screw pushes the milk up while stirring it making the final result of chocolate milk.
Calculations and Physics/Engineer concepts
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Many Physics and Engineering concepts are used to calculate the steps of this Rube Goldberg. The ones used to calculate these steps are Mechanical Advantage(MA), Force(F), Velocity(V), Potential Energy(PE), and Kinetic Energy(KE). There was also six simple machines that were used to build this Rube Goldberg Machine. Simple machines which are basically machines that apply or work with forces. There six of them used in this project levers, pulleys, inclined planes, wedge, and wheel and axle.
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Reflections
Here I like be talking about my own personal option about how this project turned out, how well the team worked together, and the up and downs in making this project. The projected turned out very well. All the parts work, maybe not as well as they could, but our project has about 80% success rate. So that is more than enough too say our project is great. Making this project with the group has taught me a lot about myself. I learned that I do a much better job at explaining out by drawing it out or making smaller version of it. I also learned to improvise when thing don't go exacting as planned. Often I would work on parts to make sure they worked. Even changing them up with bits and parts that were not included in the originally plan. I wasn't the only working hard on this project. With the rest of the group we were able to changes parts of the project that did not work out in real life compared to our schematic drawing. One part I helped to fix was the section that had three consecutive incline planes. We had to stop the balls from rolling down the ramp before they were hit. Using a piece wood, a lego, and lots of trial and error I got the balls on the second ramp to stay in place. For the third ramp we used some wood and other parts to keep tennis ball in place. The improvisational skills of our group was definitely one for our groups peaks. The whole bottom half of project had to be redone. We were able to replace it with a pulley system which work a lot better than the lever and ramp design we had originally planed. We did have some pits though. One was sometimes our work ethic was not to great. Some parts took longer than is should have to build and we were a bit unfocused at times. I think another thing we could have done better was making our project look more presentable. I'm not saying it looks bad, but I wish it looked a little neater. Some parts look a little loose and parts could be a little more touched up. I partly blame myself for this. I worked to make parts work, but after they worked I never tried or thought about how to make the parts work better and not just work. Now I think I'll try to make projects better not just good enough. My group had another peak which was our teamwork. We worked together well and got along. We did not have any disagreements while building which made things go a lot more smoothly. Person though I think I could do a better job at working as a group. I kept many ideas to myself and sometimes work on some parts by myself. I do better job at working together with groups in the future.
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