Rube Goldberg Experiment

Hello,

Into my email came the chance to watch Rebecca and Thomas do the Rube Goldberg experiments that they have been working on for a number of days now.

Their mother said that these video clips were too large to send as attachments so she uploaded them to sendspace.com. You can download them at the following links if you are interested.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/wmzvx9 Rube Goldberg Thomas
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qxjtec Rube Goldberg Rebecca

The videos are long and take 16 minutes to download. I have run the videos a number of times now. 

Tom's was the first experiement I saw, one in which a bell will ring when it is finally attached.

Rebecca's experiment described in detail for those of you who can't download that much material.

The class assignment, in this case, is to be done with mostly found or re-used objects.

Thus her model is comprised of an After Eight Mint Box, a halogen lamp carton, marbles, Thomas the Train track, chopsticks, sugar, a small bucket, levers, a wooden train. a hot wheels car, duct tape, levers, Uncle Leo's scrap wood and string.

The experiment must last 30 seconds, have someone video-tape it (in this instance), and have be timed.

Rebecca's demonstration begins with a detailed explanation of what you are going to see and ends with cheers from the rest of the family when it works. The last part of the dialogue goes like this:

Catherine: Hurray, it worked.
Eric:          How long did it last?
Thomas:    I didn't time it.

Rebecca giving a priceless 1/2 second look of disbelief as her jaw drops open at the fact that the important component of timing has not been measured.

Arta