This is a small engineering project we’re doing in science. Our task is to find inspiration from energy conversions and build a machine that shows our understanding of energy transformations!

Ideas:

Rube Goldburg Machine – Rainbow

A Rube Goldberg machine, essentially, a chain reaction. Made from miscellaneous materials that can be found anywhere, they are highly customizable and rely mostly on creativity to get a small task done. It converts potential energy to kinetic as the machine progresses through its phases. Something like dominoes, or the like. However, it would be hard to plan and would probably take up a lot of space. Also, after I construct each class, I would need to take it down again and build it up every single time. I want to build this machine to create a rainbow with a prism, involving a light bulb. I could build a Rube Goldberg machine to press the button for a light bulb to shine, thus fulfilling the energy conversion part, and the light from the bulb would create a rainbow from a prism with light energy. The hard part would be pressing the button, as well as getting the light bulb in the right angle and place to form a rainbow.

This is a really good music video detailing a complicated Rube Goldberg machine!

 

Water Wheel

A water wheel would easily convert potential energy to kinetic and is a good way to procure renewable energy, as it is already in use in several countries instead of fossil fuels. It would be fairly easy to build the wheel itself, but the container that keeps the water from flowing out would be complicated, as well as how the water would be reused. I suppose this could be solved by a circular water pump to keep the water flowing.

This article has good DIY instructions on how to build one.

https://www.kiwico.com/diy/stem/motion-mechanics/water-wheel

Solar Battery

A solar battery is a really good way to make renewable energy from sunlight, and energy from that into a battery would be very useful, since you can bring it with you anywhere with sunlight, and don’t need fossil fuels. However, the battery itself would be very hard to make. Converting solar energy to electricity that we can actually use is a concept that I’m not familiar with. I could buy a battery and modify it somehow to make it able to absorb sunlight, but I’m not sure that would count as me building it.

Limitations:

Time; We only have two weeks, around five classes, and at least two of them will be spent planning and writing these blog posts. Like I mentioned with the Rainbow Maker, I would have to build the machine, then take it down again every class.

Materials; The prism will definitely need to be bought, but everything else should be okay. The purpose of a Rube Goldberg machine is to build it from the materials you have on hand anyway, and since this is an engineering center, there should be plenty of useful materials. The lightbulb and circuits should be available in the circuits center. With all of the materials here, it’s just a matter of assembling them.

Skill; Right now, I have little to no knowledge at all about circuits, which could prove to be problematic to the circuits part of the light bulb. Mr. Michie said he’d help me through it, and it’s only a small part of the entire machine, but one of the most important. Also, I haven’t made a Rube Goldberg machine by myself before (always in a group), and the creativity I have by myself is limited, as well as materials and space.