Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Rube Goldberg Contraption Ideas

We had a good brainstorming session today with the junk in a room. I took notes on some of the ideas we played with. In no particular order:
  1. Goal: ring the bell - single "hammer" or maybe multiple bits of junk (chopped up bolts) to ring multiple times in quick succession
  2. Zip-lines made from the various wires in the box
  3. Pendulums made from the 2 power adapters
  4. Tubes / tunnels made from the curtain rod rings and the sand paper
  5. Rotation / spin motion from winding up cable attached to a counter weight (sink stopper)
  6. Light switch can act like a clip to hold something (i.e. pendulum) in place until the switch is triggered to release
  7. Gondola made from a sand paper tube (see #4) to ride along wire to transport object until stopping at which point object is ejected from tube
  8. Unscrew / screw motion made from winding wire around nylon bolt and then pulling wire
  9. A ladder descent idea where a gondola (see #8) climbs down a ladder rung by rung by shifting the weight of the object from one side to the next
  10. A funnel made from sand paper to catch and direct flying bits of bolt (see #1) toward the bell
  11. Paper airplane / boat made from sand paper

Pinch took video of the switch-release-drop-the-pendulum idea in motion, click to view.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

The challenge

A few of us at work have decided to team up and attempt the Ithaca BOJ challenge and we will use this blog as our method of documenting the project.

With our box of junk at hand, we are ready to let the creative juices flowing.