8th Graders Create Crazy Machines in Science!

Ever heard of Rube Goldberg? Or a Rube Goldberg Machine?  Rube Goldberg was a famous, inventive, and creative man who designed wonderful machines that did simple tasks.  They were very complex and some even involved animals!  For example, he created machines that could curl a man's mustache, open a door, or even a self-operating napkin machine.  All of the tasks would be operated by chain reactions that moved parts of the machine.  Mouse Trap (a board game) is another example of a Rube Goldberg machine.   Of course these were never built until a few years ago.  For the past few years, Mr. Kindrick’s eighth-grade science classes at SJHS, have been testing their skills to make their very own Rube Goldberg projects.  

The projects are completed at home, and the students can film the machine in action or even bring it to school to show their fellow classmates.  The projects need to use at least three different simple machines in it, and it has to have twelve or more steps for full credit.  According to Kali Lamoreaux, an eighth grader in Mr. Kindrick’s class, the hardest part of building her machine was actually getting it to work!  One year a student made a 47-step machine that pulled down a blind that said, “Give me an A Mr. Kindrick."  The reason the students are making these complex machines is because the Utah Core Curriculum asks them to “design and build a complex machine capable of doing a specified task.”  Mr. Kindrick also likes to ask his students to do this project.  

At the beginning of the project, students in Mr. Kindrick’s classes were able to see some examples of other Rube Goldberg projects that students in different schools built.  They could get ideas from the examples to make a great invention of their own!  One of the machines they saw had over 120 steps in it!  The Rube Goldberg projects were due on April 26, and students in each class could watch their friends’ machines in action, and if students brought their projects to school everyone could see first-hand how they worked.   Mr. Kindrick said, “I hope that with some hard work and a desire to excel, there will be some great projects put together this year.”   To see an example Rube Goldberg project, click here to see Zoe’s Dalley’s machine.