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Year 5 IGNITE: If At First You Don’t Succeed…

The Year 5 IGNITE class have been learning about the American cartoonist, Rube Goldberg and his cartoons of simple jobs completed in a comical and complicated way. The students studied simple machines and different types of energy. Then, in groups, they designed and built a Rube Goldberg machine.

Makenzie Brown said, “The important thing I learnt was about trial and error, and when you make something it might not work perfectly the first time, but you can learn from what didn’t work, and make the next machine better.”

Charlotte Yeo said, “We modified the ideas that didn’t work into something that worked, we would look at the part and try to fix it. We hot glued and taped a lot of things together and we took measurements of the positions of the objects, so when we were setting up in the next lesson we didn’t have to experiment all over again with the position. The fact that we were making something slightly weird and very crazy was super fun. Also, it was fun to be out there and creative with our Rube Goldberg machines.”

“The girls were not expected to have a perfect machine produced at the end, but rather the best they could produce in the time given. There was a lot of trial and error, redesigning and rebuilding when things didn’t go to plan, and many adaptations that had to be made.”, said Chrissie Fossey, IGNITE Coordinator.

What challenges did you face doing this project? 

Makenzie: The biggest challenge my group and I faced was design issues, trying to match the pulley with the marble we wanted to get knocked down. We tried many times with this, but we continued to fail. 

Charlotte: There is a massive list of challenges my group faced. A few of them are ideas not going to plan, the machine malfunctioning, trying to get the resources we desired and the most frustrating part – having to break it and then put it back together next lesson. 

How did you overcome these problems?

Makenzie: We overcame this problem by working together and figuring out a solution. The solution to this was we had a marble balancing on a platform and then the pulley came up and knocked the marble into the hole where we needed it to be. 

Charlotte: We modified the ideas that didn’t work into something that worked, We would look at the part and try to fix it, We hot glued and taped a lot of things together and we took measurements of the positions of the objects so when we were setting up in the next lesson we didn’t have to experiment all over again with the position. 

What did you enjoy about this project?

Makenzie: The thing I enjoyed the most was working in my group and finding solutions to problems. We overcame a lot of problems as a team.

Charlotte: The fact that we were making something slightly weird and very crazy was super fun. Also, it was fun to be very out there and creative with our Rube Goldberg machines.

What A Term! So Many Opportunities – Jennifer Oaten

As I look back on the past nine weeks, I am so grateful for who we are as a community and what we have achieved. Through the dedication of our staff and the enthusiasm of our students, we have established new connections, immersed ourselves in opportunities and worked through challenges.

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