Friday, April 24, 2015
Inside the surprisingly dark world of Rube Goldberg machines
The Verge: On the eve of the 2015 Rube Goldberg Machine Contest college nationals, six teams gather in Columbus, Ohio’s Center of Science and Industry children’s museum to set up their machines around the walls of the hangar-like space and eye up the competition. The teams have made the trip here by car, their carefully assembled machines, months in the making, broken down and borne by trucks and U-Haul carriers. Team members lean over each other to place a golf ball here and balance a domino there, assembling their delicate contraptions for the next day’s judging.
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I can’t believe these people slave for hours and hours over Rube Goldberg Machines with no scholarship on the line or anything, I mean, at least ours was for a class! But in reality, I do really like the fact that this competition doesn’t rely on crazy fancy technology or mechanics or anything like that, because that’s who Rub Goldberg was - a fun loving cartoonist who imagined wacky machines in the newspaper out of household items. It’s also super interesting that this is also done at multiple levels of schooling and it would be greatly interesting to compare side-by-side the middle school to high school to college competitions and see how similar or different the machines end up being. In addition, the concept of moving these machines hundreds of miles makes my stomach turn because we couldn’t even move ours one inch without something going wrong, let alone if we had to reassemble it.
A first glance, Rube Goldberg's comics look silly, distracting people with watering cans and dropping bowling balls on a dog to get him to stop chewing on a table. But there's so much more to that, for example. his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic of 1948. Besides that, I was really fascinated to see the processes of different Rube Goldberg Machine- building teams. I feel that they way we do Rube here in Purnell is a little haphazard. Yes, there's planning involved, but not much in the weay of math or physics. It was definitely interesting to hear that our way of doing Rube ("cobbling it together") was considered to be outdated in the world of Rube Goldberg machine. I suppose it is, especially in terms of larger scale ones like the machines entered into this competition. Going through the separate machines, I came up with this question: If the pieces are too small to see and blocked by other steps, then are they really there? Yes, obviously they're physically there, but Rube Goldberg-building is about equal parts engineering and flourish, and if you can't witness the machine in action, is it even worth putting it there? Just a thought.
I really like this article, and the love and joy it clearly shows that the people who put a lot of hard work into their Rube Goldberg machines have for creating these ludicrous devices. Unfortunately, I do not believe that we would qualify, as we had too many steps, a few power tools (though maybe not too many), and definitely took up more than 10 square feet. However, I think that it is almost impressive that we over qualify for the national Rube competition. I also learned from this article the purpose the cartoons were supposed to take in society, and how much of a comment they were on society. Learning this has made me appreciate Mr. Boevers’s reinterpretation of the device. Using that style contraption as a physical representation of a process we all are learning how to be a part of serves a few functions now to me. Not only does it show how convoluted that process can be, but it forces us to think about why one thing leads to another, and to me that is the key to figuring out the best way to go about a project.
I can definitely understand the frustrations involved with building a Rube. The little things that you have to adjust and fix to make things continue to work, every time, for as long as it can until things start wearing or breaking, can be incredibly tedious. When working on our Rube, I think the key to success really was just addressing the problems as soon as they happened and not just moving things slightly and trying again. If it didn't work this time, theres a chance it won't work again in the future, so it's best to just rebuild/readjust things so that they work every single time regardless of if there isn't precisely ideal setup. And spiking things, spiking things help a lot when you get a position for falling items that really works well. I can only imagine what doing Rube would be like if it actually had to be able to travel places, just because it would take so much time to rebuild and setup everything in the precise manner required for it to work well.
This article was weird and adorable, and I think Rube Goldberg (if he were to come back from the grave) would have had a nice time reading it and giggling at the other cartoons decorating the sides of the page. I certainly enjoyed all of the little designs, especially the one with the header that read, "How to Stay Focused". The freshman DP class certainly has an opinion on what Rube Goldberg machines are, so it's nice to read about some people with fresh opinions on the subject. Before creating the steps with my teammates, we watched some videos to get ideas of what to do. Until we started forming the steps with materials I didn't understand how much engineering actually went into each part of the process. One of the interviewees was rather astute with her comment about people assuming engineering is all business and no fun. When a Rube Goldberg works all together very well, it's fun and quirky and perhaps just like the cartoons Rube created himself. This article gave me a new perspective on the previously daunting project.
It’s pretty cool when you are given the chance to look back on the history of how certain processes came about. Of course you can make it as easy or as difficult as you want. In the case with Rube Goldberg, he wanted to do something different than the normal strategic path that people follow each and every day of their lives. Why not add a few extra steps to get to the end result. Now it has turned into a national competition to see who can be the most creative and inventive to do one task. I know its one thing to just put a few things together to create a few steps, but it takes quite a bit of planning to have everything fit and work, but also make sure it doesn’t misfire and cause and massive chain reaction to the rest of the system at play. I thought the way the freshmen do the project is an experience everyone should get to have. You don’t accomplish much without having put in a little bit of work first.
We should totally enter into this competition. That would be so much fun and I think with all the minds that we have in this school we could do pretty well. Now, what freaks me out is how you would reset such a huge machine. If you run it so far and it fails think about how long and meticulous the reset process would be. And to have to break it all down and reassemble is somewhere else…OY! But we have experience/training in making things that come apart into a truck and then go back together. I am not necessarily proposing that we try and enter this competition, but I think it would be cool and if it fits in our schedule, maybe we consider it. It would be fun. I think it is really cool how hard these teams work to make something that is by definition, pointless. It is always refreshing to see people just doing things to do them.
I totally understand how Rube can be a dark experience. Still, I think that this contest does some great things, and that it can be a fun process. One thing that I think is important, and that this context takes into consideration, is the engineering behind the machine. Looking at how we built our Rube, the difference between guess and check (and largely building out of foam core) and actually thinking about the mathematics behind things can make a big difference, and turn Rube into a higher learning experience. I also think that it was important that they take the visual fun into account: the joy of watching a machine like this happen is greatest when there is an element of storytelling. Otherwise, what is the point of making such an elaborate machine to perform a simple task? One last thing I liked about the article is that they mentioned how Rube is a connection to the time when people could look into a machine and see how it worked. Our class Rube was very reminiscent of that- no robots, computer parts, or animatronic pieces. It is a great illustration of the ways that simple mechanic processes work, and something that I think is good to be reminded of.
Those were some really cool Rube Goldberg machines. They had a lot more time to work on their machines so they were clearly a lot better than ours. Even though they spent more time working on their machines, we had similar elements in our Rube Goldberg machine. There are certain aspects of a Rube Goldberg that are very common because they are known to work. It is crazy that they did all of that work just for a title and not for a cash prize. Some things are worth working hard for the pride and title of the best, but Rube Goldberg machines are very difficult and if I worked on one for that long and it was not a class assignment, I would want some sort of cash prize. It was probably very satisfying to finally finish and compete. I wonder if they destroyed their machines after it was done or did they put them back together at home and keep them.
Honestly, I was initially so excited to create a Rube Goldberg machine in class this year. I say “Initially” because only once we actually started working on the machine did I fully understand how complicated, annoying, frustrating, and simply tiring the project would actually be. We all enjoy watching Rube Goldberg machines (at least when they work), so I thought the process would be just as fun if not more fun, because not only would I be able to watch the machine I worked on run to its conclusion, but I’d also have a say in exactly what the convoluted masterpiece of engineering does. I finally understand the frustration, anger and angst now. Rube is exhausting it takes everything out of you. Every time you try to do something right, make something foolproof or fix a simple part, that is the exact moment when another component spirals out of control and then you have to start the process all over again. On the outside we see a Rube Goldberg as a fun, imaginative and exciting project that makes the simple everyday tasks exciting feats of engineering and design, but after experiencing it firsthand I think the real feat is the process. Every Rube Goldberg machine has a far darker side of the initial process that we don’t see at all in the final run, but in terms of an experience I think the process is a great one. Yes it was hard to say the least, but the growth I’ve had from the experience was tremendous. Watching your machine constantly fail time and time again despite the best of your abilities is an experience every person in our industry should have, because everything will almost certainly never go on exactly as planned. I thought Rube would be fun and hardly like a PTM project at all initially, looking back on it now it seems more like the ultimate one.
All the machines here looked amazing. All the craftsmanship and the details must of taken ages. The one thing that I found most impressive was the fact that colleges had to dismantle their designs and truck them all the way to the warehouse. So, a machine could be working perfectly and then after the transportation, they would just stop working. It could be the levelness of the floor, as said in the video, it could be the temperature of the room. A machine like this has so many small factors that affect whether or not it works. To set everything up perfectly and then have it not work would just be devastating. That challenge adds a whole new level of difficulty to the competition.
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