My mom had her students at school make Rube Goldberg Machines (A Rube Goldberg machine, contraption, device, or apparatus is a deliberately over-engineered or overdone machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction. Thanks Wikipedia.) and we thought that would be a fun thing to do with Emmaline for school today. We started out by watching some videos on youtube; it was pretty awesome. This one was especially cool. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdPDn1KUz_A There are some other really fun ones if you just type in Rube Goldberg Machines. Anyway, we watched the videos and then I sent her in her room and told her to find things she could use to make a basic machine and this is what she came up with. (Again, another post that is mainly for my Mom.)
Attempt #1.
#2- She decided the ball was too heavy.
#3-Again, different ball.
Success!! (I did finally show her that where the domino hits the ball is important, and maybe if she spaced them out a little more it would give it a little more power, but I really wanted her to come up with her ideas and fix the problems on her own.)
Second machine idea.
Bloopers
