This is for a rube goldberg project. Let me know if it is possible and how I would do it.?

Question

1. Person releases a toy car
2. toy car hits a book
3. book hits a button and the button starts an escalator with a marble
4. the marble is dropped off at the top
5. it hits some dominoes
6. the dominoes hit another marble
7. that one travels down a track and hits a see-saw
8. the see-saw releases another marble which travels down another track
9. the marble hits a book which continues to hit 2 more
10. the last one hits a see-saw and the other end hits one of those dog ball throwers with a pencil on top
11. it should throw the pencil back to the person.
for ?s send me an email

Answer 1

The marble on the escalator is of concern. It may not reliably trip the domino or roll straight. Consider the following:
1: Have marble roll down a track from the escalator top. The track will guid the marble to the domino and the added momentum will topple it.

2: Have a larger object ride the escalator to the top (like a figure) The object arriving at the top would push over the domino


A marble hitting a book? Are the books going to act like dominos? Again I am concerned that the marble may not have enough mass to topple the book. Could the see-saw release a larger object like a softball? Or if you must use a marble you cound have the marble trigger a mouse trap which has a book balanced on the mouse trap bail.

Answer 2

Marbles can be unpredictable... perhaps something larger or less slick?

Otherwise sounds like fun. Hope you win this year!