Big Machine

The Big Machine project was the second of two projects for Intro to Mechanical Design, taken in Fall 2021. The goal of the project was to create a multi-step segment of a Rube Goldberg machine to connect to other teams' segments. Once all connected, the 'Big Machine' spans three floors of the main engineering building at Pitt -- Benedum Hall.

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The first task of the project was to decide on our first step, which was to be given to the team whose segment was directly before ours. This had to hold specific dimensions and the type of motion necessary to activate the first step of my team's segment. This first step was required to be unchanging throughout the design process. We were also given requirements for our final output to feed into the first step of the following team's segment. From these first and final steps, we had to design and build our segment. 

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A notable feat of my team's machine was our use of hydraulics via an Alka-Seltzer-activated piston syringe (step 3)