Summer is here…. and with it, I am teaching a few summer STEM camps for the University of Mississippi. Some of the camps have more of a maker focus, which makes for some fun projects.  One of the projects my campers were working on was a Rube Goldberg machine.

Now, for those who are not familiar with these machines… go ahead and Google it. See… you’ve seen these before in the movies.  The nice thing about these machines is that students can attempt to create any machine they can come up with. Kids love getting to actually build stuff, using hot glue and duct tape is always a bonus.

One of the initial challenges during this camp was the fact that so many students have been “spoon fed” everything for so long, they had little experience in actually having to struggle to make something work. The look on their faces when they asked why something didn’t work and I answered with, “That’s a great question… why didn’t it work?” was priceless.

To help the students learn a little more about how to engineer these machines, and how some tools could be used, I did a little Google Fu, and found the website www.engineering.com/GamesPuzzles/DynamicSystems.aspx  This link takes you to this fantastic little site.

This is a great tool for students to experiment with various challenges to make a ball makes it’s way to a cup.  If that weren’t enough, they can go on to create their own challenges.  I admit, it is kind of addicting…

Go ahead, you know you want to… click it and play… Have another tool you use? Comment below, I’d love to know what others are using.