The Quarantine Machine
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Description
A chain reaction machine with only toilet paper tricks !
As toilet paper has become a meme in this quarantine, I thought it would be fun to make a chain reaction with it to spend time. First I had to go out and buy it, and be judged by people... But I took the packs one by one every day and there was plenty of it in the store, no shortage because of me haha.
It is difficult to make a chain reaction with toilet paper because they roll unpredictably because of imperfections, and they're all different.
Now let's talk about the tricks :
- Slide on the broom : I had to add some tape on the broom because it wasn't sliding enough otherwise, that's why it's brown. The open book of the ground is useful because it helps to make the broom falling in exact same position each time, so it could hit the book. Fun fact, I used almost all the books available in my flat for this machine
- "Stay home" : I built this trick at the end, because I thought it was a shame I didn't put that message out. It was the trick that had the most failures (success rate ~50%), because the rolling was chaotic and it had to take the right angle to hit the next domino book. I tried to put it in the same initial position each time and the shock to make it start rolling is absorbed by the books so it's smooth and it always goes the same way. When it worked, it was mostly luck x) but I could afford it because the machine was small enough to take risks.
- Toilet pendulums : Yeah, I had to tape the toilet paper sheets to the ceiling with lots of tape. Both had a success rate of 100% but the problem was somewhere else. In order to film the machine, at one point I had to pass between the two hanging rolls without destroying them, even though they were very fragile and there was only 50cm (1.5 foot) between them. One time I smashed the first pendulum while passing, that's why it looks torned.
- Toilet paper that unrolls : my favorite trick in this machine. I used a lot of hot glue and a fidget spinner again ! It was a nightmare to rebuild, if you ever had to reroll a roll like this you know why, it just keep moving left and right so you have to reroll it slowly and carefully, which took me 5min each time.
- The liquid soap : it was an evidence to build this as a goal within the current context. A lot of weight was needed to push it so I had to use a heavy metal ball, which required hot glue to fix everything around so the ball doesn't push the chair. The blue domino line was supposed to give me time to put my hand under the soap but I did it at the very last moment in panic.
As you can imagine it's not possible to rub hands with a camera in one hand so there is a cut, but I tried to make it looks natural and fluid.
Almost all the fails were caused by a minority of tricks (like in all my machines) : the "stay home" and the auto-tilt just before the fan. The auto-tilt failed mainly because of friction that stops the roll, so I added tape to the kaplas, and also early-trigger fail caused by vibration.
For this machine I was out of my confort zone, it was a "classical" rube goldberg with a large scale and large objets, not a tiny marble machine. Also It was hard to film because it moves rapidly and everywhere in the room (floor, table, ...). Also I built this in only 10 days, and not months like I am used to.
