Rube Goldberg

Rube Goldberg Early Life - Most well known for his cartoons that show overly extensive inventions to complete simple tasks, Rube Goldberg was born in San Francisco on July 4, 1883. Even a young age, he loved drawing and using his creativity. This “nonsense” was discouraged by his parents, who wanted him to be an engineer. Though he was only four, he was already developing his art skills by tracing pictures from the book History of the United States. His first professional drawing lesson was taken when he was 11. He then went to highschool and graduated. Later on, when he was old enough, he did as his parents wished. He promptly enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley. Within a short time, he earned a degree in engineering. At the age of twenty-one, and entered the real world for the first time.…

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…

Inside our class textbook is a photograph of a Rube Goldberg machine. These types of machines are ones that are created to perform a relatively simple task in the most convoluted way, usually through chain reactions (or cause and effect). In this photograph, the task to be performed is to tug a light chain to turn a light bulb to light up. In order for this to happen, many things must occur, in specific order, first. This is much like life. A person wishes to go to college to study science…

Rube Goldberg and Beyond As a High School Physics student in my Junior year, I was placed on a team and asked to build a Rube Goldberg machine. I had seen several YouTube videos on these ball rolling, random ramps, fast moving machines…but were we able to build our own construction marvel for extra credit? Rube Goldberg began his career as an engineer and later to become a American Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist. His vision of taking everyday household items and making them into crazy…

The self-operating napkin is a famous cartoon that sums up what Rube Goldberg machines are all about: creating a machine(or contraption or invention or device or apparatus) that uses a chain reaction to accomplish a very simple task in a very complicated manner. For example, the self-operating napkin accomplishes the simple task of wiping the chin through this convoluted series of events: lifting a soup spoon (A) pulls a string (B) that jerks a ladle (C) that then throws a cracker (D) past a…

affected the society by contributing primarily their advanced technology. Many of their advanced technology consisted of simple machines such as the lever, screw, cranes, and gears. These simple machines allowed the performance of work be held effortlessly. In my Rube Goldberg Machine we demonstrated the key aspects, of the ancient Greeks society by focusing on the five different components and representing their advanced technological accomplishments. Ancient Greece the native home of western…

RGM Reflection My Rube Goldberg Machine is the PROTOTYPE-SR213. It accomplishes the simple task of lifting a cup. When I started brainstorming about the project, I wondered what I could do and how I could do it. When I finally came up with one idea, it was already time to make up two more ideas to pass the EDP. In the building stage, after I already chose what design I wanted to build, I made a bunch of changes. For one, I got rid of the part in the middle where a toy car rolled down a…

Students have been learning by leaps and bounds throughout February. Time flies when you’re having fun, and in a leap year! Whether its heart-pumping excitement at the fire department, investigating beyond your average brainteaser, rocking out in geology, or commemorating America by learning from its’ history, students are challenging their academic achievements. This month has been absolutely extraordinary, and we are happy to share with you a little about the wonderful activities your…

When my team and me were working on the Rube Goldberg machine last Wednesday, I had a hard time perform my design from theoretical designing to an actual real machine. I wasn’t able to connect to some segments together because the car won’t hit the dominos and then pop the balloon. It took me 20 minutes to figure out my plan won’t actual work and I needed to consider another alternative. I was a little upset that my plan didn’t work as planned due to my poor problem solving…

Our Rube Goldberg machine used several physics concepts in order to complete its simple task, which was to turn on a Roomba. One of the most prominent physics concepts within our project was gravity and/or gravitational potential energy, which could be seen in places such as the inclined planes and the hammer swinging down. Gravity was the downward-pulling force that allowed the energy to be transferred from the top level, to the Roomba on the floor. The toppling rule was another major concept…