I think the lab was pretty fun. At first it was hard to figure out wear to put the life jacket because we didn’t know wear to put it in order for it to stay up. But after Mr. Fritts broke it down it gave us an idea of wear to put the life jacket. After our second trial we realized that it needed head support and once we added enough head support it would stay afloat.

There are 4 simple machines that we have learned about, the lever, the inclined plane, the wheel and axle, and the pulley. The lever is a long tool such as a pole or a rod put under an object to lift it. The lever is more efficient when it has a fulcrum. One example is a seesaw, there is a triangle in the middle which acts as the fulcrum and the people on it make it go up and down. The inclined plane is just a ramp. One end is higher than the other end. It takes the same amount of work, but less force, to move an object up a ramp than to move it vertically. The wheel and axle is very helpful today. The wheel is self explanatory, but an axle not so much. An axle is a rod or pole centered in the wheel that allows the wheel to turn around. It can be used as a transportation tool for bikes or to turn the hands of a clock. The pulley is similar to the wheel and axle it just has a rope chain or other cord attached to it. That allows it to move something up and down or back and fourth. It can also make something such as a flag up a pole convenient to do from the ground. It changes the direction of force necessary to do the work. I pull down on the rope, but the flag goes up. Our Rube Goldberg machine was not stable enough to work more than one time. I think if it was stabilized more than it would have worked more than once