From Deadman's Trail

“An Engineer and a Bartender Walk into my Basement.”

During the three months before Christmas, the pandemic got to me and I decided I needed a “pandemic project.” It is a Rube Goldberg chain reaction device that was inspired by a children’s STEM project suggested for my 4-year old granddaughter, whom my wife and I are home schooling. Thinking back to a slew of old jokes, I call the project, “An Engineer and a Bartender Walk into my Basement.”

What you see on the video took me over three months working now and then. I started with the spinning nut and its wooden target, which came from that STEM project. I had nothing in particular in mind other than something to amuse granddaughter and me. After I started with the unwinding nut I added the golf ball section (from the lever to the PVC pipes). By the time I worked out the design for this and got the positioning correct I realized I needed an objective, which was when the drink idea came to me. Then it was a matter of adding various components and figuring out the different “trigger” mechanisms. The hardest thing to get right was how to pour the drink after having the ice cube land in the glass. The most time consuming part of the project, though, was calibrating the ice catapult so that the cube, once launched, went where I wanted. Both range and azimuth were exceptionally sensitive to the positioning of the fulcrum. Getting that part to function and time properly took over a week to sort out. And I was quite pleased with my lead shot and funnel approach for simultaneously initiating the ice and pour while delaying the pour.

Click here to watch the video.


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