Posts on “ simple machines ”

Last Friday, I had the honor of being one of the judges for the the Rube Goldberg Machines Boss Level at NYC’s Quest 2to Learn School. With all of debate surrounding assessment, it was refreshing to witness a unique approach to middle school finals (or as Quest to Learn refers to them with a kid-friendly nod, “boss levels”). A “Rube Goldberg machine” is a device that’s designed to complete a simple task in a complex fashion. For this challenge, 6th-graders teamed up to create simple machines that served different purposes – one created art using paint, another lifted a tissue out of a tissue box. In order to complete their boss levels, these 6th graders had to design a solution to complete the tasks that they were assigned. Beyond the curricular content students had to apply, they were collaboratively problem solving, planning, testing, and iterating as a team in order to complete this challenge — a very accurate set of real life skills that we employ regularly at BrainPOP.  We visited six classrooms and assessed the completed projects using rubrics, providing authentic feedback to the students from a variety of professions represented by the judging panel. Upon entering each classroom, the excitement of… Read the Rest»

In Simple Machines, the newest science game featured on GameUp, there are spare robot parts all over the Museum. It’s the job of Twitch to go and collect them. It won’t be easy, and that’s the problem: our adorable-but-lazy friend likes things easier. It’s up to you and Twitch to use found objects to create simple machines, devices that will help him solve challenges with a minimum of force, collect the parts and stay out of trouble. Playing this games allows for playful explorations of inclines, planes, pulleys, force, levers, gravity and gears! Special thanks to our friends at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago for developing this great addition to GameUp!