Art & Inspiration It's all about the engineering

OK, this is gonna be off topic, but I know 95% of us on here appreciate cool engineering. This is a Rube Goldberg machine that my 7th grade daughter and three other classmates in her "advanced" group built for an Engineering Challenge Day at KU about 4 months ago. They won 1st place. It took me this long to convince her to let me film it while she explained it, loaded it up and ran the machine. Enjoy!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZSYWLPa1yA

 

Pretty cool!

 

absolutely amazing. 7th grade i was still trying to figure out why my shirts were always inside out when i took them off.

 

I enjoyed that !

 

Awesome. Fun to watch it work. I especially enjoyed the triangle drawing mechanism.

 

That is so cool! Guys here can't figure out how to put air in their tires and these 7th graders are rockin on science!

 

Very cool. you should be proud.

Doc.

 

Excellent - very ingeneous. Its great to see kids doing something other than computers or electronic robots. Make sure you give her a big high five !!!!

 

That was some kinda cool...it really made me smile this Sunday morning. You definitely should be proud of your daughter !

 

Wow. Get her building hot rods asap!!

 

She's quite a kid. When she was about five years old she was out in the shop, and I saw her taking long, deep breaths, like she was trying to figure out a smell. Then she said "I like the way it smells out here". She asked if we could make her room smell that way, and I said "yes, but I'm not too sure mom would be happy about it".

 

Very cool.

 

Good for her...some "modern" kids DO "get it"....
...and thanks for the smile...

 

Best 3:44 on the `net .......Thanks

 

Too bad they're cutting funds for NASA, she'd be working there.

 

What a great project. You should be proud. Our society is going the wrong way in my opinion. Too many youth idilize sports figures whose only ability is to bounce a ball and contribute nothing to improving our world. Youth need to be introduced to engineering and sciences.
Check out two great programs your daughter may be interested in that are geared to challenge young people and get them interested in engineering.

odysseyofthemind.com a program that has some great challenging problems that Jr High and High Schools can compete in. They always have a vehicle problem.
Also
usfirst.org An robotic competition that is sponsored by Dean Kamen the inventor of the Segway. Partners a company with a group of students to build a robot to play a game and there are national competitions.

My oldest son participated in Odyssey of the Mind and their team won the state competition and went to the national's. He now has a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering and is a Flight Controller for NASA.

 

It's a problem. While I appreciate all the work, This is exactly what's wrong with many engineers. They take the most feature laden application to do a simple task. Its the "Look at all the crap I can do" when a simple and direct approach could do the job.
I'm still looking for a car stereo that just plays music and doesn't sit up , bark, cough , and fart.
Yeah, I guess someone pissed in my cornflakes this morning.

 

It's going to take a very smart boy to impress that girl someday.

 

Congrats on not only having an obviously smart/talented daughter but one who is actually using the brain she was given. I would encourage her to keep it up but don't let her near the makings of a hot rod. She might build one that rivals your best effort

Frank

 

Very cool!

 

Absolutely awesome.

Well Done!!

 

That was impressive! Thanks for sharing! How much would she charge to come work on my project?

 

I understand where you're coming from. I, too, would like to be able to buy a car stereo WITHOUT a detachable face, and large enough controls so that I wouldn't have to pull over to the side of the road and put on my glasses to change from AM to FM.

The point of a Rube Goldberg IS to make a complex machine which, in the end, performs a simple task. The kids did well.

 

Then the kids did well. There's a lot of understanding of the basic machines shown there

 

A total enjoyment to watch, great job.

 

The kids did a great job!

 

They did a great job and she did a great job of explaining it. I sent the link to my sister in law who teaches 5th grade in McGregor, Tx.

It's good to see kids actually think, follow up on it an make things work they way they planned.

 

Very impressive. I would say you should be proud...but it is obvious, you already are. My kids still marvel are fart bubbles in the tub.

 

There is hope for America!

 

Very cool! I'm forwarding it to my son (who is an engineer) and my 2 young granddaughters. Hopefully is will be an inspitation. Thanks.