Thought 35: Metaphor Machines

Welcome back to my blog. Today, I will be reflecting on our Scimatics project, Metaphor Machines. For this project, we had to build a Rube Goldberg machine that is a metaphor for the scientific method. It also has to use 2 types of electrical circuits. We spent the first part of the project researching how electrical circuits work and how to calculate the voltage, current and resistance of a circuit. My group consisted of myself, Gwen, Faith and Ben. We managed to build a Rube Goldberg machine with several mechanisms that express the stages of the scientific method. A Rube Goldberg machine is a machine that uses several complex and overly complicated steps to solve a simple task.

The first curricular competency for this project is Questioning and Predicting. That means using all of your time efficiently without distractions. To be completely honest, I found myself more distracted during this project than others. I think there is definitely room for improvement and that I could have been more helpful to my group members.

The second competency is Reasoning and Analyzing. That means being able to make accurate estimates. I showed this skill during my individual blueprint, where I accurately designed a Rube Goldberg machine with working circuits and an accurate scale. We also showed this skill on the group blueprint, but I didn’t do a lot of work on that. 

The third competency is Planning and Conducting. For this project, that meant using the proper equipment to accurately calculate and record data. We exhibited this in our final machine and in our blueprint, where we used working series and parallel circuits and used a voltammeter to calculate the voltage, current, and resistance. 

The final competency is Scientific Communication. We showed this competency in our video which shows each step of our machine working and includes detailed voice overs to explain the connection to the scientific method. I feel very good about the final video as I made it almost entirely by myself.