Rube Goldberg Machine: Pop a Balloon
How do you pop a balloon? It takes 13 steps, if you do it Rube Goldberg style. This was a super-deluxe school project that took 3 hours to set up yesterday afternoon in our garage/driveway, and the result was a very entertaining 17 seconds.
For a 4th grade project, my niece was required to create a Rube Goldberg machine that took at least 10 steps to pop a balloon. She enlisted the help of her grandpa (an engineer), who asked to use our Drenchinator 3000. (Check out our summertime soaking contraption here.) A Rube Goldberg machine is a “contraption, invention, device or apparatus that is deliberately over-engineered or overdone to perform a very simple task in a very complicated fashion, usually including a chain reaction.” (Thanks, Wikipedia!)
Here is how to pop a balloon:
(Ignore the child; he was not part of the machine. He just wanted to feel involved during the three hours of setup time.)
A- Car travels down ramp
B- Sets off dominoes
C- Dominoes disrupt lever
D- Lever releases ball down spiral ramp
E- Ball triggers electric car, which drives along track
F- Car bumps into wooden plate
G- Wooden plate triggers ball to go down tube
H- Ball hits another ball at end of tube, which travels on ramp
I- Ball releases spring-loaded cardboard, which flips
J- Cardboard triggers mousetrap, which pulls string
K- String releases balanced chair
L- Falling chair triggers wrench to hit target on Drenchinator
M- Target arm swings to pierce water balloon
N- Added bonus with popped balloon: children below it get soaked!
(I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get good still shots of the chair-wrench combination; by the time they were finishing this up and hadn’t even done a test run yet, I was running late for a meeting and I also didn’t want to make the crowd wait for me to take more pictures.)
We only ran this whole thing twice. Once as a test run to make sure it worked, and once for filming so the video could be submitted to the teacher. We had multiple devices capturing stills and video, and about 17 spectators. They started right after school around 4 p.m., recorded the video shown above a little after 7 p.m., and when I got home from my meeting at 8 p.m. it was all put away.
We were all pretty excited about the successful balloon-popping Rube Goldberg machine. Thanks for visiting!
Oh my goodness! This is fantastic! What an intricate project for this grade level. What a fabulous outcome. I hope your 4th grader felt super successful after creating this. That video is fun to watch. The excitement is contagious, I was cheering right along with them! Thank you so much for sharing!
Thank you, Jeanne! So happy to hear it is exciting for others to watch, too. We had a lot of fun, and my niece was very happy about it.
I always enjoy seeing Rube Goldberg style … they did an awesome job! Hope your niece got an A, she certainly deserves it! Thanks for sharing Kelly!
Thank you, Marilyn. I'm glad you enjoyed watching it!
That is brilliant – still got a grin on my face! Well done all of you. Hilary
Thanks so much, Hilary!
I cannot believe that an assignment this difficult was given to 4th graders! Bless you talented aunts and uncles, parents, and grandparents, because it is NOT an appropriate task for a child that age. You did a fantastic job! Applause, applause!
Thanks, Barbara! Actually, the kids were really excited about it, and this is one project where they did encourage adult participation. Good thing Grandpa is an engineer! 🙂
The next project for my 3rd-grader is a grape smasher using simple machines. It will be our third time around with that project, but the student is supposed to do most of the thinking. 🙂
Why do you think it is not appropriate for a child of this age? Most children of this age are putting together Lego sets and other such things. Just curious.
I needed some ideas for my seventh grade science project. 🙂
Glad I could help!