Contraption maker running tim series#

The machine with the longest running time, shown below, had a 4-second marble run. The result was a chaotic but fervent attempt by all students to experiment and create the best machine. The most successful machine would be the one that allowed the ball to travel the longest amount of seconds before hitting the table.

Contraption maker running tim series#

created a series of collisions that would slow the marble down.

traveled at least 50 cm without touching the table it stood on and.

featured a marble rolling down a slope at least 100 cm off the ground.

They used common materials such as cardboard boxes, tubes, plastic forks, toothpicks, playing cards and tape. Once prototyping finished, the kids moved on to creating Rube Goldberg machines in teams of three to four.

What happens when two objects of the same mass hit each other, for example? How does this affect the direction and rate of speed at which the objects are moving? The students offered replies like, “It’s like car crashes when two cars smash, sometimes the little car gets more crushed.”īy creating and observing physics on the computer, they were able to come to their own conclusions on how collisions affect the movement and speed of objects.

The teachers and I used this time to ask open-ended questions with students one-on-one. Students explored the physics behind moving objects that they could not practically test in a classroom, such as accelerating rockets. Once students got the hang of the mechanics of Contraption Maker, they were allowed to go through as many tutorial puzzles as they could in a 30-minute period. They guided the students through the first tutorials of the game, which asked basic questions like, “How would you expect a bowling ball versus a soccer ball to bounce?” Students would make predictions, then test their theories. The teachers introduced physics not via a textbook or lecture, but with Contraption Maker, a game where you can create your own digital Rube Goldberg machines. To learn about the physics of collision, students created Rube Goldberg machines on computers first, then created their own physical models.

We were fortunate enough to assist educators Aline Baissac and Nikita Brougher at River Road/El Camino del Rio Elementary School on a digital prototyping project. Students, however, rarely get the opportunity to model systems before creating them in the real world. Biologists, for example, simulate ecosystems on computers to predict how human intervention could affect a native animal population. Scientists use computers all the time to create digital prototypes of complex systems and predict outcomes.