My Rube Goldberg Machine: How To Pop A Golf Ball

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In this essay, I will be describing my Rube Goldberg machine and how it relates to force, motion, speed, and the transfers of energy through each step. In this project, we have a series of drops turns and transaction where one object will hit another. The goal of our machine is to pop a water balloon. To pop the water balloon we had a track that led to the water balloon hitting a mouse trap and popping it.

At the beginning of our machine, the golf ball has gravitational potential energy. It is not in motion but as soon as we cut the string the first golf ball will start to roll down the ramp. This will convert the gravitational potential energy into mechanical kinetic energy. This transfer of energy made the ball start to move and speed up …show more content…

Here the golfball will fall and land into another area to keep it going. When it drops off, the amount of gravitation potential energy decreases as a result because it is falling closer towards Earth. As it falls, some of the energy is transferred into thermal energy. As it falls, it accelerates. The mass of the golf ball affected the acceleration because if we were to have a had a larger or smaller ball the acceleration rate would have increased or decreased depending on the size off the ball. As the ball fell, the friction that acted upon it was different from the other steps. When the ball fell, fluid friction acted upon it because when an object falls or moves through a liquid it is created. In this situation, the golf ball is falling through the atmosphere. Once the ball lands on the other track, it accelerates down the track. Rolling friction occurs as well here. The stored gravitational potential energy is turning into mechanical and kinetic energy. Once the ball reaches the end of that point, it zooms across an empty space and lands in another turn track. Through that transaction, again gravitational potential energy is being turned into mechanical energy as it falls. Speed affected this part because if the golf ball was not going fast enough it would have not made it to the turn part. If the speed was faster, the golf ball would have overshot and missed the turn track. Since friction always occurs, the friction here was fluid friction. Again, this is because it is falling through the atmosphere. Once the ball reaches the track, that friction is changes into rolling

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