Comp 150-07: Intelligent Robotics
Lab 1 - due in class, Tuesday Jan 27, 2009
In this lab, your team will construct a Rube Goldberg
machine to deliver a standard soda can.
A Rube Goldberg machine is an overly complex mechanism to perform a
simple task. The official Rube Goldberg website has links to the
annual machine contest and other fun sources of inspiration.
A pretty sweet Rube Goldberg machine. A MythBusters Rube Goldberg machine.
The Rules
- Your machine must deliver a soda can. That means: at the start, the soda can is somewhere inside the machine, and it is released and delivered (e.g., rolls or pops out) after all the steps are completed. The machine must be easily
reloadable (no disassembly between trials).
- Your machine must fit into a 3'x4' footprint and have a maximum
height of 5'.
- Acceptable starting points are a button push, a string pull, a
coin drop, a lever pull, etc.
- Your machine must have 5 energy transfers (steps). Each energy
transfer must be different and contribute to the final outcome (that
means, side-effects don't count for energy transfers, several
falling dominos count as one energy transfer).
- You may use any materials you want to
beg, borrow, steal (not recommended) or buy, but!
- You may not use any commercially available power source
(batteries, power supplies, outlet power) or any materials or
components that require a commercially available source of electric
potential (that
means, for example, you can't use your Lego NXT brick or a computer!)
- You are welcome and encouraged to use creative energy sources
that are not disallowed above.
- You get 2 human interventions for your demo: one at the
starting point (to push the button, pull the string, etc.), and one
if something goes wrong.
Special Lego Rules
If you use Lego blocks from your kits, the following rules absolutely apply:
- No drilling or cutting the blocks
- No gluing or duct taping to the blocks
- No defacing of the blocks of any kind
Grading
A (95%): 5 energy transfers
B (85%): 4 energy transfers
C (75%): 3 energy transfers
D (65%): 2 energy transfers
E (55%): < 2 energy transfers or machine doesn't work
F (0%): no machine or didn't show up
The grade is taken as the best of two trials.
Extra Credit
You can get extra credit by chaining two or more teams' machines
serially to make a longer (10+ energy transfers) Rube Goldberg
machine. The chaining rules are as follows:
- +2 points each if 2 teams chain their machines
- +5 points each if 3 or more teams chain their machines
- +10 points each if the whole class chains their machines
together
- Each machine must still work on its own.
- You get 3 human interventions per chain, including starting
push (so, 2 if something goes wrong).
- The final energy transfer of the previous machine must initiate
the first energy transfer of the following machine.
- Email the Lab Assistant with group info if attempting a chain
by 4pm on Tuesday, Jan 27th.
- If attempting a whole class chain, you only get 1 human
intervention (the start push) for the entire
chain.
Handing In
The whole team must come to lab on Tuesday, Jan 27 at the CEEO (Curtis
Hall basement, under the Brown & Brew) at 6pm and demo their
machine. In addition, you must bring a hard copy of the team lab report showing:
- Team names
- Checkboxes next to
- size (max. 3'x4'x5')
- no commercial source of electric potential
- only 2 human interventions
- Photograph of your machine, labelled with energy transfers
- List of energy transfers
- Short descriptions of each energy tansfer and materials used
A good way to write the lab report is to make it a webpage (you must
still print out one copy to hand in during class). We can
then link the webpages to the class for general show-off purposes.
This lab is based on Lab 1 of the CMU course 16-311 by Prof. Howie Choset, with permission.