Monday, June 23, 2008

Rube Goldberg Machines

My students created Rube Goldberg machines during the last few weeks of the year. I used the projects as a chance to try out some technology and I'll be posting my thoughts on that soon. First, however, I want to focus on the project. The inspiration came from a dy/dan post in which he shared some You Tube videos of wonderful Rube Goldberg machines. I thought my students would enjoy watching them and that led to my thinking that they would also enjoy creating some.

It seemed like the perfect project for the chaos of the final weeks of the year. This video is photos of the project as well as short videos of their machines. The audio in it is taken from their thoughts about the project; what they enjoyed, challenges they faced, how they felt about working in groups.

If you want to see their machines in action with their explanations, check out the video on You Tube.

3 comments:

Snippety Gibbet said...

What an amazing opportunity for those kids! I'm sure that'll be one of the things they remember and take with them from fifth grade.

organized chaos said...

SO COOL!! I am SO excited to work with you next year!!!

Anonymous said...

Awesome! What a great way to end the year. Thanks for sharing!