Rube Goldberg Machines at
Franklin Regional Senior High
Franklin Regional Senior High School students in Physics and Honor Physics 1 spent a week trying to flip a coin in an incredibly complex
way. The students were challenged to build a Rube Goldberg machine that could flip a coin in ten or more steps. They applied the general
laws of physics such as kinetic and potential energy, gravity, centripetal and centrifugal forces, and others to accomplish the task.
A Rube Goldberg machine is a contraption that is deliberately over-engineered to perform a simple task in a complicated fashion, usually
using chain reactions. It is named after Rube Goldberg, a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist best known for drawing cartoons depicting
complicated devices that performed simple tasks. Rube Goldberg is the only person ever to be listed in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as
an adjective.
Franklin Regional Senior High School student teams were provided with a defined work area, a table, and two chairs. They provided their
own materials for the machines but were not permitted to spend any money on them. As students built their machines, they maintained
a journal describing progress with at least one daily picture to record their work. Students created lists of the machine’s steps and the
concepts associated with each of the steps as well as provided a verbal presentation of their work prior to activating their machine. While
students were troubleshooting their contraptions, they invited elementary students from Heritage Elementary to visit. The high school
students explained how the machines worked, showed the elementary students some of the processes, and engaged them in discussion
about how they solved the seemingly simple problem in a complicated way.
FR A NKL I N RE GI ON AL NE WS
ranklin Regional
Ms. Monica Bruno and Mr. Richard Sunny, science teachers, developed the project for students. Mr. Sunny shared, “We do this project
to allow the students a chance to showcase what they have learned in physics and apply it to solve a problem. They explore engineering,
creative thinking, problem solving, and cooperation all while applying their physics knowledge!”
Sydney Tomb fixes her machine
Nicole Baldy, Nicole Mostowy, and Alyssa Rose with their machine
Rachel Marcej, Lando Bacik, Brendan Yohe, and