This week’s class was different, we had to work on our Rube Goldberg Machine. I sketched out a rough outline of what my machine should look like.
I started off by making a spiral path for a ball to start from. To mark this I had to use a helix and make the inner one small. Getting the right speed and weight of the ball was very important so that the ball didn’t fly off the path. It took me a couple of attempts to get it right. The only issue with this is it takes a long time to go around the spiral path.
Making the seesaw was fairly easy, but making it move was very hard. I had to give it a rigid body constraint. When we give an object a rigid body constraint it is important to make sure that the object is not touching any other object We must make sure that the constraint is on the right axis.
The Plinko board was not a part of my original sketch, but I added it later. To make this board I took a box and removed the faces and added cylinders. I wanted the ball to fall in one hole but that did not work out and I ended up making a slide.
Making the dominoes was fun. I just needed a box and I gave it an Active Rigid Body and lined them up such that they all fall down in a row, one after the other.
I remember playing with gear-based toys, which, if I recall correctly used to be given for free along with some Nestle products. I thought of adding them to the machine and tried to give it a Rigid Body Constraint but it was not working out. I tried to delete it and added it again but I was still unable to make it work. So now I am going to wait till Monday so Nick can help me with it.
I like how my Rube Goldberg Machine is coming together but it is not going quite as exactly as I had planned in my sketch. I am happy that it’s starting to look good but I need to to add more elements to make it look better.