Tksst: Power of Optics: A Light Powered Rube Goldberg Machine

Students dissect simple machines. In this simple machines lesson, students gather simple machines from their home to dissect in class. Students investigate the working parts of simple machines and construct a machine based on the designs...

In this 2-day lesson plan focused on exponents, middle schoolers will cross the curriculum by engaging in science, history and language arts activities. Exponential growth will be explored using grains of rice on a chess board....

A Rube Goldberg machine does not really look like it would make work easier. Introduce your class to Rube Goldberg with a resource that shows how his inventions make simple tasks harder to complete. 

All the important information on Rube Goldberg, including cartoons of Rube Goldberg machines complete with descriptions of how each machine works.

Let's see how complicated we can make this simple task. The last activity associated with a 10-part series has groups design and build a Rube Goldberg machine. Teams determine a simple task to accomplish and use the engineering design...

This is the home site for the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. The competition is on to see who can build the zaniest machines. Read about machine ideas, contest winners, and how to build a Rube Goldberg Machine.

In this two-part activity, students design and build a Rube Goldberg machine. The open ended problem uses the engineering design process and can have a preset purpose, such as rolling a marble into a cup from a distance, or can be left...

Students design and construct a Rube Goldberg machine that accomplishes a simple task in at least ten steps. They view and discuss various Rube Goldberg designs, identify types of simple machines, and in small groups produce a schematic...

Contains a description, pictures, and a video of a Rube Goldberg machine in action. Also describes an activity to build a 20 step Rube Goldberg Machine.

Build a machine that accomplishes a task in an inefficient way with this Rube Goldberg challenge. Find some tips and a place to document your engineering process on this site.