Rube Goldberg Projects – 2011

The Physics Honors students completed their Rube Goldberg projects today and I have to admit that I was very impressed. I am certainly blessed to have dedicated students who earnestly wish to apply themselves to their work, even when they are uncertain of the payoff.

The project requirements can be seen here, which is an attempt on my part to force students to see the ideas of energy and machines concretely. Contained within the project rules is a statement that no extra credit is possible on this project. This was implemented in order to prevent students from overdoing this project (for the sake of points!) as was seen frequently in the past. In its place is a requirement that each student group must have a conversation about the machines and energies in front of the class.

As can be seen below, of the 17 student groups, only one group did the minimum (10 steps) with many groups adding extra steps for the sake of style or just having fun with the project. Many reported the the total time expended was about eight (8) hours. The “attempts” column is the self-reported number of times a group needed in order to film the project in one take, a requirement of the project.