Project Guidelines Posted

History of Science 2, Spring 2008
Class Project Assignment

The class project is a team project and the final project is due on the date listed in the syllabus and below. There will be occasional progress reports due to ensure that sufficient and regular meetings and work is being undertaken before the end of the semester. The revised list of dates for these interim reports is presented below.

All teams will consist of five members (in a few situations six), randomly chosen in class. Members of the various teams are allowed to rearrange their composition of members, only if all involved agree to the switch. If there is any dispute about switching teams, no changes made be undertaken. Final team rosters are required to be posted on the blog site by 9 am, Wednesday, February 5, 2008. No changes may be made after this date without the instructor’s permission.

All team members will present individual progress reports and provide the instructor any criticism of other team members’ contributions or lack there of. Each progress report will also consist of a discussion about some aspect of the project undertaken by the teams. Teams should meet on a regular basis to discuss the progress of their design and any research that has gone into the design and building processes. Each team will also select a captain/leader who will ultimately be responsible for the success or failure of their team. Choose your captain/leader wisely.

The Assignment:
Each team will construct a Rube Goldberg device. Goldberg was a cartoonist who created complex machines to do the simplest of tasks. A trained engineer, his devices were often spoofs of other machines that were marketed to people to make their lives faster and easier, but actually did neither. The formal definition of a Rube Goldberg machine is:

A Rube Goldberg machine is an extremely complicated apparatus that performs a very simple, easy task in an indirect and convoluted way. The most horrible examples of his machines have an anticipation factor, as the machine makes slow but steady progress toward its goal.

Each team member will also have to contribute at most $20 dollars towards the construction of the final project. No budget for the project may exceed $100.00 in materials. At an engineering university, I expect you to not only equal previous devices built by other engineering schools, but also show ingenuity and creativity in your own designs and final projects. Please do not repeat any existing design! However, on the website below, there is a national contest and this year’s is to assemble a hamburger with a machine that involves no fewer than 20 steps and can be no bigger than 6’ by 6’! If anyone wants to do the national contest, feel free to do so as all the guidelines and rules are on the rube-goldberg.com website.

Important Dates:
Team Rosters due: 9 am, Wednesday, February 5, 2008
Report #1 (What design have you chosen & why? List of research sites examined) Due: February 20th
Report #2 (Construction budget & initial discussion of construction, materials, problems) Due: March 12th
Report #3 (Final design sketches, methodology & team progress) Due: April 2nd
Report #4 (Results of preliminary testing of your device & lessons learned) Due: April 16th
Final Project Report Due with Demonstrations: Week of April 24th

The average lengths of each of these reports (#2-final report) should be at least 2-3 pages typed, double-spaced. Report #1 can be posted to the blog.