In Science 10, along with Khalil and Ocean, we’ve created a Rube Goldberg machine, dubbed the Spanish Inquisition. It is designed to press the space bar on a laptop to play a video. Mr. Ford was a big help, allowing me to borrow an Arduino microcontroller and various electronic parts for this project.

These are the steps to the machine’s action.

A. A large marble is dropped into a cup. This is one example of gravitational energy, and a gravitational to gravitational transfer of energy between objects.
B. The cup has a hole on the bottom with a string running through it. It is also taped to a cardboard “wall.” With the weight of the marble, the tape gives way from the weight.
C. The cup pushes down a large lever consisting of a tube as it falls. This is a gravitational to mechanical energy transfer.
D. Inside the tube is a small Lego brick, which is shot out of the tube into a Jenga block resting on top of an overturned transparent plastic tray.
E. Under the tray is a light sensor connected to the Arduino microcontroller. The Jenga block blocks enough light to the sensor to trigger the Arduino’s code. (Source below.) This blocks radiation energy from reaching the sensor, triggering a transfer to electrical energy to the Arduino.
F. The Arduino triggers a servo with a pen attached to it to hit the space bar on a laptop. This is an example of an electric to mechanical energy transfer. The mechanical energy then transfers to mechanical energy to electric energy in the laptop to use stored chemical energy to play the video, which produces radioactive stimuli and sound energy.

This is the source code of the Arduino used in the project:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is a video of the machine in action.

 

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