Students Build Rube Goldberg Machines

Brooklyn Draisey 

Columnist

Students finished building their Rube Goldberg machines
on Thursday. 

 Students finished their Rube Goldberg machines in Mr. Busch’s Chemistry class on Thursday. The students had been working on the machines since Tuesday. The machines had to have at least three steps that included two gas relationships. Those relationships could be between temperature and volume, pressure and temperature, number of particles and volume, or many others. The students have to complete a simple task, like popping a balloon, through a series of simple tasks, which what a Rube Goldberg machine does. The steps must also happen on their own. After the first step is triggered, the students can’t mess with the machine until it’s done.

            “We’re doing this to experience gas relationships in action,” said Taylor Davis, a junior in Mr. Busch’s fourth period class. One of the gas relationships featured in her group’s machine was between temperature and volume. Alexander Chenoweth’s group had the same goal. They started out with blowing a marble down a ramp, which turned on a power cord, also turning on a hot plate with a flask and balloon sitting on it. The flask contained some water, and once the water started to boil, the balloon started to inflate. Eventually the balloon was popped by a needle placed next to it.

            “It was a very interesting experience with awesome results,” said Chenoweth.