Rube Goldberg Project
Project Description
For our Rube Goldberg project we were supposed to chose a simple everyday task and make a series of 15 steps and all the steps had to take a total of 15 seconds and the Rube could not be higher than 3 feet. Our group also had to use a program called Sketch Up to make a 3d model of our Rube. We also had to calculate 8 simple machines within our Rube. Our simple task was to hit a ping-pong ball, our Rube had 15 steps, when everything went right the Rube lasted 17 seconds, and was about 2 1/2 feet.
Rube Goldberg Picture
This is a picture of our Rube Goldberg. And our simple task was to hit a ping-pong ball.
Sketch Up
This is our Rube Goldberg model. We created this using Sketch Up.
Calculations
https://docs.google.com/a/animashighschool.com/document/d/1Yh3_ZHfUUgOuNZZkjYn3UElEp5dN4nVnq-U8WRpJ7XI/edit
Rocket Project
Rocket Picture
This is a picture of our rocket launching during our exhibition.
Rocket Log
Entry #1: Today we made our wings and glued them to the pieces of wood.
Entry #2: We glued the wings (connected to the wood) to our rocket and made our parachute.
Entry#3: Our wings were shifted during the gluing process so we took off our wings and re-glued them.
Entry #4: Today we took our parachute and connected the stings from the parachute to the rocket.
Entry #5: Our parachute was to small to hold the rocket so we had to make a new parachute.
Entry #6: Today we connected strings to our new parachute and cut a small hole in the middle of it.
Entry #7: During our test launch our parachute broke.
Entry #8: Today we made a new more durable parachute with stronger string and connected the strings from our rocket to our parachute.
Entry #9: Today we made sure that nothing would go wrong with our rocket so it could fly and be successful during exhibition.
Entry #2: We glued the wings (connected to the wood) to our rocket and made our parachute.
Entry#3: Our wings were shifted during the gluing process so we took off our wings and re-glued them.
Entry #4: Today we took our parachute and connected the stings from the parachute to the rocket.
Entry #5: Our parachute was to small to hold the rocket so we had to make a new parachute.
Entry #6: Today we connected strings to our new parachute and cut a small hole in the middle of it.
Entry #7: During our test launch our parachute broke.
Entry #8: Today we made a new more durable parachute with stronger string and connected the strings from our rocket to our parachute.
Entry #9: Today we made sure that nothing would go wrong with our rocket so it could fly and be successful during exhibition.
Rocket Specs and Flight Information
Rocket Project Reflection
Exhibition for our group went very well. Even though our rocket didn’t go the highest is was still a fun time and our parachute was one of the first to deploy. Some groups spent a lot of time on their rocket and not as much time on their parachute where we spent most of the time on our parachute.
If I could go back to do it again I would change my rocket to make it better. I would change my nose cone because my nose cone wasn’t very well put together and that is one thing that made my rocket not fly as well. I would have also taken more time on creating better glue joints. The better glue joints would have allowed my rocket to withstand higher pressures. The last thing that I would change is that I would have gathered more materials. Those are the main things that I would change about my rocket.
If I was able to give next years builders advice I would tell them to make sure that they have more than enough materials to give them more room for mistake and room for changes. I would also tell them to make there rocket as light as possible. I would also tell them to be prepared for your rocket to be destroyed so they could be ready to re-build. That is what I would advise anyone before doing this project.
When doing this project I learned that I am not very ambitious. I learned that I would much rather do something that I knew would work and it not be very creative than be really creative and ambitious and have a lot of fun and not be completely sure that is would work. This resulted in me having a very plain rocket that wasn’t artistic and didn’t look as good as others.
If I could go back to do it again I would change my rocket to make it better. I would change my nose cone because my nose cone wasn’t very well put together and that is one thing that made my rocket not fly as well. I would have also taken more time on creating better glue joints. The better glue joints would have allowed my rocket to withstand higher pressures. The last thing that I would change is that I would have gathered more materials. Those are the main things that I would change about my rocket.
If I was able to give next years builders advice I would tell them to make sure that they have more than enough materials to give them more room for mistake and room for changes. I would also tell them to make there rocket as light as possible. I would also tell them to be prepared for your rocket to be destroyed so they could be ready to re-build. That is what I would advise anyone before doing this project.
When doing this project I learned that I am not very ambitious. I learned that I would much rather do something that I knew would work and it not be very creative than be really creative and ambitious and have a lot of fun and not be completely sure that is would work. This resulted in me having a very plain rocket that wasn’t artistic and didn’t look as good as others.
Conclusion
At our exhibition, the observers were 174 feet away (53 meters), and they recorded our rocket at 4 degrees. Our rocket was in the air for 2.97 seconds. We found our max height by doing 53*tan4 = 3.70 meters. We found our average actual velocity by doing our max height times 2 divided by our actual time. 3.70* 2/ 2.97. We found our theoretical flight time by doing 2 times the square root of 3.7 divided by 4.9 and that equals 1.73. 2* the square root of (3.7. To find our percent error, we took our actual flight, subtracted by our theoretical and then divided it by our theoretical flight time. Then we multiplied our answer by 100 to make the answer a percent. 2.97-1.73/1.73*100= -97.03. Our percent error was so high because of how much glue we used. We used so much glue because we bounded our bottles and wanted to make sure that there was no chance of our rocket breaking. We didn't think of how the glue would weigh down our rocket. We also used a really big parachute even though our rocket was small. And also when the parachute deploys the friction increases a lot. This increases the percent error because the equation we used to find out our percent error was based off of true free fall, and because our rocket's parachute deployed it made our percent error higher than it really should have been.