Metaphorically A Revolution

Welcome back to another really weird PLP project. We built a machine but it was based on a revolution and there were metaphors involved. That probably made no sense at all.   Well it all started way back in early October. We were told that we would be starting on a very strange project. So keep on reading to find out what that project was!

 

 

The base of our project:

This unit was about revolutions. And why they happened. The first thing we learnt about was something called Crane Brinton’s Theory of Revolution. Crane Brinton was a historian who came up with the 4 different stages of a revolution. It’s the model all revolutions (for the most part) follow. 

The criteria for this project: 

So once we learnt about the base of revolutions, we were divided up into 5 groups and got assigned a specific revolution. I was assigned the French Revolution and my team mates were Luc, Anika and Aedan. 

Here are the different parts we had to include into our machine: 

– A Rube Goldberg machine (click here to see an example)

– The different parts of the machine would be a metaphor for our revolution. Hence the name metaphor machine.

– We used mainly household materials like cardboard and wood to build our machines. 

– To throw in an extra wacky element, our machine had to be themed to the steam punk genre. (Click here to see a post about steampunk.)

– We had to create a working circuit to show our knowledge of electricity and circuit building because this project was integrated with our science unit about light and circuits. 

A Rube Goldberg Machine

 

The creating of the Machine:

Before I tell you how I created the machine, you should probably watch the video that explains all the different parts of the machine!

Now for the behind-the-scenes of this video.

First we started off with creating a scientific scale diagram. The point was to show how the machine would look and how much of each material we needed.

 

Naturally we had to research about the French Revolution. We learnt a lot about the French Revolution. But there was too much in our revolution to make up as metaphors so we had to break down the French Revolution into 6 different points and make a metaphor for each point:

Here is a slideshow of the individual parts of the machine that relate to all the points I just laid out.

  • The First Point of our metaphor machine

Reflection: 

Overall I think this project was really fun if a bit frustrating at times. For example, when we were building the circuit we built a parallel circuit so that means the lights are all connected on these two main wires, kind of like a ladder.  Each time the ball would roll down the ramp where the lights were attached, one of the lights would come undone and then we had to go sodder the side of the light back on to the parallel circuit. But I learnt a lot about making a circuit mainly the do’s and the don’ts.

A model of our circuit

On the more humanities side, I learnt a lot about revolutions. I never knew anything about the different stages of a revolution. I thought it was just one big thing. I didn’t know about the causes for the French Revolution, I didn’t really know anything about it. 

So yeah! It was a really weird and fun project, combining building and science and humanities

 

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