Rube Goldberg and Beyond
The objective of this essay is to ask a question that you would like to answer as part of the scholarship application. My question is “What is an example of a creative approach you took to accomplish a project you were assigned?”
As a high school physics student in my junior year, I was placed on a team and tasked with building a Rube Goldberg machine that could move an object 20 feet. I started the process by watching several YouTube videos that demonstrated the basics of a Rube Goldberg machine (i.e., balls rolling, random ramps, many moving parts, etc.) but I quickly realized that this would be a tremendous challenge to build our own contraption. Knowing that my reward for success would be extra credit in a very difficult course, there was no doubt that we had to take on this challenge.
Rube Goldberg began his career as an engineer and later became an American Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist. His vision of …show more content…
As a leader, I needed to get results from others by providing a clear vision and guidance on what needed to be accomplished. Having a clear plan after we debated the pros and cons of each design we tested kept us on track. We all knew what we wanted the final product to look like but now we were faced with actually turning our design ideas into an actual working machine that could move an object the required 20 feet. It was very important that I build trust within my team. I did this by leading through example. I admitted to mistakes without blaming others and I encouraged each team member to think of creative solutions to all the issues we faced. I created new opportunities for my teammates by distributing and sharing leadership. I listened to all ideas or suggestions from each member of this team and made sure that everyone had a voice and was heard. I assigned sections of the project to each person so each had ownership in the overall design of the
The objective of this essay is to ask a question that you would like to answer as part of the scholarship application. My question is “What is an example of a creative approach you took to accomplish a project you were assigned?”
As a high school physics student in my junior year, I was placed on a team and tasked with building a Rube Goldberg machine that could move an object 20 feet. I started the process by watching several YouTube videos that demonstrated the basics of a Rube Goldberg machine (i.e., balls rolling, random ramps, many moving parts, etc.) but I quickly realized that this would be a tremendous challenge to build our own contraption. Knowing that my reward for success would be extra credit in a very difficult course, there was no doubt that we had to take on this challenge.
Rube Goldberg began his career as an engineer and later became an American Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist. His vision of …show more content…
As a leader, I needed to get results from others by providing a clear vision and guidance on what needed to be accomplished. Having a clear plan after we debated the pros and cons of each design we tested kept us on track. We all knew what we wanted the final product to look like but now we were faced with actually turning our design ideas into an actual working machine that could move an object the required 20 feet. It was very important that I build trust within my team. I did this by leading through example. I admitted to mistakes without blaming others and I encouraged each team member to think of creative solutions to all the issues we faced. I created new opportunities for my teammates by distributing and sharing leadership. I listened to all ideas or suggestions from each member of this team and made sure that everyone had a voice and was heard. I assigned sections of the project to each person so each had ownership in the overall design of the