CREATE
Intermediate Science
Simple Machines Simple machines are used every day in many very different types of products. Have you ever played the game called Mousetrap? Have you ever heard of a Rube Goldberg machine? In this activity you will learn about simple machines that are used every day and how they can be combined together to create more complex machines and contraptions like the ones mentioned above.
Simple Machines
70
Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed
Before you study about machines, think about the uses of machines on Earth today and answer these questions. Why do people use tools and machines?
Do animals other than humans ever use tools to help them? Give an example.
To begin learning about machinery, visit the sites below and answer the questions. Science Learning - Simple Machines
http://www.fi.edu/qa97/spotlight3/spotlight3.html EdHeads – Activate Your Mind: Simple Machines
http://www.edheads.org/activities/simple-machines/
What is a machine?
Explain how a simple machine works.
71
Simple Machines
CREATE
Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed
CREATE
To continue to learn about simple machines, visit the following websites and answer the questions below. Inventor’s Toolbox http://www.mos.org/sln/Leonardo/Inventors Toolbox.html Simple Machines http://library.thinkquest.org/J002079F/sub3.htm Simple Machines http://www.coe.uh.edu/archive/science/science _lessons/scienceles1/finalhome.htm Introduction to Mechanisms http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/rapidproto/mechanis ms/chpt2.html Simple Machines http://sln.fi.edu/qa97/spotlight3/spotlight3.html
Wheel and Axle Describe the function of the machine:
Describe the shape and structure of the machine:
Give some examples of more complex machines that utilize this simple machine:
Site name:
URL: Simple Machines
72
Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed
Pulley Describe the function of the machine:
Describe the shape and structure of the machine:
Give some examples of more complex machines that utilize this simple machine:
Site name:
URL:
Wedge or Inclined Plane Describe the function of the machine:
Describe the shape and structure of the machine:
Give some examples of more complex machines that utilize this simple machine:
Site name:
URL:
73
Simple Machines
CREATE
Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed
CREATE
Screw Describe the function of the machine:
Give some examples of more complex machines that utilize this simple machine:
Describe the shape and structure of the machine: Site name: URL: Gears Describe the function of the machine: Give some examples of more complex machines that utilize this simple machine:
Describe the shape and structure of the machine:
Site name:
URL: Lever Describe the function of the machine:
Give some examples of more complex machines that utilize this simple machine:
Describe the shape and structure of the machine: Site name:
URL: Simple Machines
74
Intermediate Science
The importance of these machines in use throughout human history cannot be overstated. Many of the most amazing man-made structures in the world were built using these simple machines. In today’s technological world, simple machines are used together to create much more complex machines. They are also used for fun. When many simple machines are put together in an overly complex way to perform a simple function, it is called a “Rube Goldberg machine.” There are contests all over the country every year where prizes are awarded for the best “over use” of machines to do a simple task. To continue your study of machines, you will create your own “Rube” machine on paper. Visit the following sites to learn about the process.
Official Rube Goldberg Web Site
http://www.rubegoldberg.com/ (Click on “gallery” to see famous examples of his machines.) Rube Goldberg Machine Contest
http://www.rubemachine.com/ (Click on “history” to learn about the history of the contest.)
Rube Goldberg - The 20-Step Machine
http://www.schools.utah.gov/curr/science/sciber00/8th/ machines/sciber/rube.htm Simple Machines
http://library.thinkquest.org/J002079F/sub3.htm (This site has a picture of an elevator made out of simple machines.)
75
Simple Machines
CREATE
Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed
CREATE
The first thing you must do in creating your own Rube machine is to choose a basic activity that you do every day that you would like to have a machine do for you. This is the basis of invention! What is the task to be accomplished by your machine?
Why have you chosen this task? Why do you want a machine to do it for you?
Outline the steps that will happen from the first part of your machine to the end result. Try to incorporate five different simple machines into your design. State what machine is being used in each step. 1)
2)
3)
4) If your school subscribes to BritannicaSchool, be sure to check out the related articles on the site.
5)
Simple Machines
76
Student Activity Page–copy and distribute as needed
Sketch your Rube machine below. Use plenty of space so that each step is clearly labeled. Use the numbering from above to help the observer understand what is occurring.
77
Simple Machines
CREATE
CREATE
Intermediate Science
RESEARCH SYNTHESIS Prepare a brief report that describes your “Rube machine” and the types of machines it uses. In your introduction, you should provide some background information about the different types of simple machines, what a Rube Goldberg machine is, and why you chose to design the type of machine that you did. Assume that your reader has no knowledge of machines or Rube Goldberg machines. In the main body of your paper, you should describe what your machine is, what it is used for, and how it works. Explain the function of the different machines that you included. Explain why (or why not) this machine might be useful to people. You should include a drawing of your Rube machine with your presentation. Make sure you present your information as clearly as possible so that your audience understands everything about simple machines, and more importantly, about the machine you designed! Remember to talk about your ideas for your report with your teacher before you begin.
Simple Machines
78
TEACHER MATERIAL
Simple Machines is the alleged inventor of the screw, the exact date of its first appearance as a useful machine mechanical device is device, having a unique purpose, that obscure. Though augments or replaces human or animal effort for the accomplishment of physi- invention of the water screw is cal tasks. This broad category encomusually ascribed passes such simple devices as the lever, wedge, wheel and axle, pulley, and screw to Archimedes (3rd century BC), evidence exists of a (the five so-called simple machines) as well as such complex mechanical systems similar device used for irrigation in Egypt at an earlier date. The screw as the modern automobile. press, probably invented in Greece in the 1st or 2nd century BC, has been lever simple machine used to amplify physical used since the days of the Roman Empire for pressing clothes. In the 1st force. All early people used the lever in some form, for moving heavy stones or century AD, wooden screws were used in wine and olive-oil presses, and cutters as digging sticks for land cultivation. (taps) for cutting internal threads were in The principle of the lever was used in use. the swape, or shaduf, a long lever pivoted near one end with a pulley platform or water container hanging from the short arm in mechanics, a wheel that carand counterweights attached ries a flexible rope, cord, cable, to the long arm. A man could chain, or belt on its rim. Pulleys are used singly or in lift several times his own weight by combination to transmit pulling down on the long arm. This energy and motion. device is said to have been used in Pulleys with grooved Egypt and India for raising water and rims are called sheaves. lifting soldiers over battlements as In belt drive, pulleys early as 1500 BC. are affixed to shafts at their axes, and wedge power is transmitin mechanics, device that tapers to a ted between the thin edge, usually made of metal or shafts by means of endwood, and used for splitting, lifting, or less (ends joined together) tightening, as to secure a hammer head belts running over the pulleys. One or onto its handle. more independently rotating pulleys can be used to gain mechanical advantage, ... The wedge was used in prehistoric especially for lifting weights. The shafts times to split logs and rocks; for rocks, wooden wedges, caused to swell by wet- about which the pulleys turn may affix them to frames or blocks, and a combiting, were employed. In terms of its nation of pulleys, blocks, and rope or mechanical function, the screw may be thought of as a wedge wrapped around a other flexible material is referred to as a cylinder. block and tackle. Archimedes (3rd century BC) is reported to have used compound pulleys to pull a ship onto dry screw in machine construction, a usually circu- land. lar cylindrical member with a continuous helical rib, used either as a fastener wheel and axle or as a force and motion modifier. basic machine component for amplifying force. In its earliest form it was Although the Pythagorean philosopher probably used for raising weights or Archytas of Tarentum (5th century BC) water buckets from wells. From the Encyclopædia Britannica
79
Simple Machines
Goldberg, Rube ... byname of REUBEN LUCIUS GOLDBERG, American cartoonist who satirized the American preoccupation with technology. His name became synonymous with any simple process made outlandishly complicated. …He also created the cartoon character Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, an inventor of contraptions that accomplished simple ends in a roundabout manner. One of his hundreds of inventions was an automatic stamp licker activated by a dwarf robot who overturned a can of ants onto a page of postage stamps, gumside up. They were then licked up by an anteater who had been starved for three days.
Additional Websites Brain Pop: Simple Machines (levers and inclined planes) http://www.brainpop.com/technol ogy/simplemachines/ Information on the inclined plain, the lever, the pulley, and the wheel and axle.
Machines Make Life Easier http://www.usoe.k12.ut.us/curr/scie nce/sciber00/8th/machines/sciber/i ntro.htm Zoom Inventors and Inventions http://www.enchantedlearning.com/i nventors/indexa.shtml List of illustrated descriptions of various devices, machines, and inventors.
