quinlyn bright's digital portfolio
Rube Goldberg/Psychology
I did not take the normal route through this project. I began like everybody else, in a group and planning steps. I quickly found myself disenchanted with the project, feeling like I wasn’t learning as much as I could and that my efforts and attention were not being of much use building a machine with concepts that I already understood. I did not feel that completing the project would be of much use to me in gaining a greater understanding of physics or of those concepts. I eventually approached Tina during her office hours in an attempt to make the project more meaningful to me. Rather than going deeper within the project somehow, I actually created a project for myself on the psychology of the double effect, eventually creating a code in order to run a little experiment both around school and at the exhibition.
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When designing my project and subsequently my code, I first began simply by googling “psychology Rube Goldberg.” One of the articles that I found in my search, published by Psychology Today, inspired me to focus my project on the double effect. This is idea that you can judge whether an action with a negative and positive effect is morally acceptable based on four qualities. It detailed what it was, how it worked, and how it was connected to Rube Goldberg machines. I was fascinated by the idea of it, and it caused me to dig deeper and do more research. Once I understood the concept thoroughly, I began to work on creating my code, and with it, my experiment. It included three scenarios of varying complexity in order to test how the reactions and responses changed. My biggest skill during this project was Independent Research and Learning. I used this consistently throughout this time, since I was both working independently and, in a way, creating my own curriculum as I went. I think that I grew the most in Creativity. My experiment’s design required me to come up with at least two scenarios that had not already been proposed that fit my individual needs, changing only the variable of complexity. In fact, even the fact that my project was centered on psychology was decided by me, and every step of the way afterward was my own creative vision and drive, rather than a set of instructions I was meant to follow. This project has helped me grow and become more confident working on my own on a project all my own.
Experiment Code (right)
Kinetic and Potential Energy
If a Rube Goldberg machine begins by dropping a 7 gram steel ball 50 cm into a bucket on a pulley system. The potential energy for this step can be found by multiplying the mass in kilograms ( 7 g = 0.007 kg), gravity (9.81 m/s2), and height in meters (50 cm = 0.5 m). The equation for this ends up becoming 0.007 kg * 9.81 m/s2* 0.5 m =.034335 joules. In order to calculate the kinetic energy of the steel ball upon landing in the bucket, one would multiply the velocity ( 45 cm/s = 0.45 m/s ) by 1/2 by the mass ( 7 g = 0.007 kg). This produces the equation 0.5 * 0.452 m/s * 0.007 m = 0.000709 joules.
import java.util.Scanner;
public class PhysicsPsych {
static void main( String [] args ) {
Scanner input = new Scanner( System.in );
System.out.println();
System.out.println( "Please enter a number from 1-10, but not 7:" ); //randomizing
int scen = input.nextInt();
System.out.println();
switch(scen) { //proposes scenarios and asks their opinion or directs them to redirect
case 1:
case 4:
case 8:
System.out.println( "A train is headed for four people. To stop the train, a person pushes somebody in front, killing them but saving multiple lives." );
System.out.println();
System.out.println( "Were their actions morally acceptable? Enter 1 for yes and 2 for no.");
break;
case 2:
case 5:
case 9:
System.out.println( "A train is headed for four people. To stop the train, a person releases a trap door which drops somebody in front of the train, killing them but saving multiple lives." );
System.out.println();
System.out.println( "Were their actions morally acceptable? Enter 1 for yes and 2 for no.");
break;
case 3:
case 6:
case 10:
System.out.println( "A train is headed for four people. To stop the train, a person pulls a lever, which drops a weight which releases the latch holding a trap door closed, dropping a person into the path of the train, killing them, but saving multiple lives." );
System.out.println();
System.out.println( "Were their actions morally acceptable? Enter 1 for yes and 2 for no.");
break;
default:
System.out.println( "Please ask for assistance to reset this program" );
}
int answer = input.nextInt();
System.out.println(); //spacing
if (answer == 1) //restating for my ease in recording
System.out.println( "You said their actions were morally acceptable.");
else
System.out.println( "You said their actions were not morally acceptable.");
System.out.println(); //spacing
System.out.println( "Thank you for your input!" );
System.out.println();
}
}