Launch a Rocket
Event Location: Orange County STEM Saturday
Competition: Energy Transfer Machine
Division: 6-8
School: South Creek Middle
Team Name: Wild Trail Blazers
Project Name: Launch a Rocket - Wild Cat National Space Station
Team Size: 1
I will be launching the first ever rocket from The Wild Cat National Space Station using a Rube Goldberg Machine. This project was made by Luckshan R.
In this energy transfer machine, I will be launching the first rocket from the Wild Cat National Space Station (WCNSS) that will be launched by a Rube Goldberg machine, the name of this WCNSS operation is “Launch a Rocket”.
The Wild Trailblazer Team – Luckshan R. Grade 7 at South Creek Middle School
Step 1: The Sailboat Car
A fan powered by a rechargeable 3.7 V battery will push a car across the table due to a sail attached to the car.
Step 2: The Hammer
The sailboat car collides with the gray lever pushing a hammer that will hit a marble onto a paper track
Step 3: The Engine Check
A series of dominos will be knocked down by a marble, when the last domino falls off the table, it will pull the domino on the plastic fork off the table as well. Special dominos with popsicle sticks are used to connect the rows of dominos.
These dominos represent the engine check of a rocket in the prelaunch phase.
Step 4: The Rollout
Once the domino on the plastic fork is pulled away, the weight of the metal fork and gravity will move the can forward as it spins 90°. This motion will tug on the rope and pull the wooden stick off the blue box allowing the car to move forward.
The motion of the car shows similarity to a space shuttle being rolled out to the launch pad.
Step 5: Wind & String
The car from the previous step will hit the metal lever, this lever will close the connection and allow the 3 V battery to power the DC motor and spin the red fan. as the red fan spins, the windmill will start spinning, as this fan spins, the string attached to the other side will wrap around the stick.
Step 6: Marble Run
As the string gets pulled back to the wooden pole on the windmill, the paper clip will eventually fall off the marble run allowing the marble to roll down the track and then fall into the funnel from which it enters the tube, after it exits the tube, it will activate the dominos and the last domino falls off the table.
Step 7: The Engine Activation
The falling domino will pull an object in front of the Ultrasonic Sensor away from it, once the sensor observes that there is nothing in front of it, it will send a signal to the Arduino Nano (The motherboard). Then the Arduino will activate two things, first the LCD I2C, which will count down from 10 to 1, then the Servo Motor which will turn around to release a rubber ball onto a track.
This project represents the activation of the rocket engine, less than a minute before takeoff because it has is using electric energy. The Arduino is powered by a 4.5 V battery source. I have also implemented a three second interval between every count down of the LCD I2C influence suspense and allow other components like the buzzer some highlight and making it the best part of my project and achieve the precise time of the machine run.
Step 8: Launch the Rocket
The ball now rolls down the track and hits another ball, these two balls fall off the track and fall into the pulley, making the rocket launch
Final Step: Rocket Launches
The Rocket comes up as the balls fall in to the bucket attached to the pulley.
Please see the explanation of the Rube Goldberg machine here:
And here is the Final Run of my Rube Goldberg machine…
Hope you all like my Rube Goldberg machine to launch the Rocket made by Wild Cat National Space Station. Thank you.