Rube Goldberg Project

Maple Science Students' Inventions Reflect Work of Inventor Rube Goldberg

The final project for Maple Summer School students in the Science Challenges class was to create a machine that reflected the work of American cartoonist, engineer, author and inventor Rube Goldberg (1883-1970). Groups of four to five sixth through eighth graders were asked to create a variety of complex machines that performed a simple task in an indirect way. Teacher Sam Kurtz said that they had just a few days to brainstorm, sketch, decide on materials and build their machines to meet a final objection. He added that they were asked to use 10 transfers of energy, and most succeeded in this challenging task.

Popular materials used for the machines included paper towel tubes, marbles, latex gloves, miniature cars and boats, plastic lizard, sticks, disposable cups, rulers, dominoes, and a lot of masking tape and Elmer's glue. One group created a machine that pushed a ball down a wood ramp until it caused a toy bus to drive into a piece of string which was attached to a light switch. The bus approached the end of the ramp and ran over the string causing the light switch to turn the lights off in the classroom. This was followed by cheers from the students who created it. Another machine launched a plastic boat carrying a toy lizard down a ramp and into a garbage can.

During the five-week Summer School period, students also created containers to protect eggs on their journey from the top of a ladder and through the postal system; built catapults to launch marshmallows; and made marble mazes and bridges from toothpicks.

Randy Wray: The Budget Compromise – Congress Creates a Rube ...

Don’t you feel relieved? After weeks of threats, hostage-taking, and other forms of deficit terrorism, our two political parties have finally “compromised” on what was always a foregone conclusion. (As I write, we still await the Senate vote—but it looks like a done deal.)

Washington got what it wanted—a down payment on destruction of the last remnants of progressive policy. Soon, it will be 1929 all over again. We can make believe that the New Deal and Great Society programs never existed, and go back to the good old days when it was every “man” for himself. To hear Michelle Bachman tell it, we might want to go back to the even better old days before the Civil War when men were for sale, leading to more stable families living in slavery on plantations run by benevolent slave masters.

Superficially, the spending cuts don’t look like much. The grand compromise cuts $21 billion next year from a budget of $3.7 trillion—sort of like foregoing one Big Mac from your annual food budget. In spite of all the talk about needing to take the medicine now, rather than kicking the “deficit crisis” down the road, Congress adopted a plan to kick that can right down the interstate. It might make you wonder what the fuss was about.

All sides expressed their displeasure, as they held their noses and voted for the putrid heap of a plan. That is pure political theater, of course. Republicans fear a backlash from the fringe right that wanted immediate elimination of all social spending. Democrats fear a backlash from working Americans—the 70% or so who vehemently oppose any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And so both sides say they hate the plan, but under the circumstances it was the best that could be secured.

And both sides agree that the looming fiscal crisis still looms. So they have created a Rube Goldberg machine to do what they know they cannot: the bill contains automatic triggers and across the board cuts that take effect if Congress cannot ram through cuts to so-called entitlements.

I do not want to go deeply into the details, but here is a quick summary. The bill contains $1 trillion in cuts, spread over coming years. It creates a bipartisan committee that is supposed to find another $1.5 trillion to cut by Thanksgiving; Congress must vote on the recommendations by Christmas. If all that fails, $1 trillion across the board cuts will take effect. In return the debt limit is raised by $400 billion now, and another $500 billion later. Congress can vote to stop the debt limit hikes, but the President can and will veto such a vote—letting Congressional weenies save face.

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