3-5 Journal Entry

Alana Prettitore
March 16, 2008
Journal 3-5

Energy/Rube Goldberg Week

I. Research Question

In my research, everyone said Goldberg was most known for his cartoon inventions. There were apparently dozens, if not hundreds. No source that I cam across had a most famous one, but the one I saw most often was of the man sitting down and having soup. It’s called “Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin.”

II. Summary

On Tuesday, Mr. Couillard was out and in groups we completed several worksheets. First, we watched an interesting documentary by the guy who made the Super Size Me movie. It was called 30 Days off the chart. Basically, two uninformed, typical Americans from NYC are sent to the Dancing Rabbit home. They lead lives of very wasteful human beings – they consume, consume, consume and give nothing back to the earth. They actually use so much that if everyone used as much as they did, then we would need 12.5 Earths to support needs. Unbelievable! So these people much use EVERYTHING in an environmentally-friendly way. The way they shower, eat, go to the bathroom, etc.! Everything was recycled – even poop – and they had very educational experiences. I wouldn’t enlightening though because at the end after learning about how much they are killing the Earth, they said they would try to walk more and buy better light bulbs….how can one go through an intense experience like that and see firsthand the evil of their ways and not want to completely change their lifestyles? I guess this is why our Earth is going to **** in a hand-basket as they say…

Anyway, before I go on too much of a rant, let me explain what else we did. In our Rube Goldberg groups we did Update #2. For our group, we need to complete the steps. There is only one aspect missing towards the end of the project. Then, we must test this. We are stuck and need Couillard’s help!

On Thursday, Mr. Couillard handed back a lot of our graded work. Then, we spent the class working on the Rube Goldberg projects. We asked questions, reviewed specifications, and so forth. Also, we got into our groups and white-boarded our design reviews. We discussed how to measure the energy that occurred and then he gave suggestions for how to build our projects. I was shocked to see that another group had the Easy Button idea and that everyone started with a ball rolling down a ramp. The designs all looked oddly similar.

III. My Inquiry

Is there are purpose to building a Rube Goldberg project? What are the benefits to this inefficiency?!?!