Balloon Powered Kubota X Tractor and Rube Goldberg Machine with Presley and Dylan

by Brent Gwinn, Kubota Engineer
Published February 21, 2023

Watch Presley make the Kubota X Tractor and Dylan make a Rube Goldberg Machine. Then build your own X Tractor!

Template

Balloon Powered Kubota X Tractor

Materials

  • Cardboard or cardstock
  • Scissors
  • Balloon
  • Glue and tape
  • Markers, crayons, or pencils
  • Pen
  • Straws and skewers
  • Bottlecaps or cut out wheels

Building the X Tractor

Follow along with the video!

  1. Print out the PDF with the template for the X Tractor.
  2. Color the template before you cut it out! This will make it easier to put together later.
  3. Once you've colored the pieces, cut them out and then lay the cut out pieces face down onto the cardstock, leaving enough space between each piece that you have room to cut.
  4. Take your pen and trace each piece out then use the scissors to cut them out. Once you cut out the cardstock pieces, tape or glue the paper pieces onto the cardstock.
  5. Glue or tape the base of the tractor together, making sure to have the colored side facing outward.
    1. The longest rectangular piece is the bottom, lay that with the color side down first.
    2. Glue on one of the sides, being careful to keep the colored side out.
    3. Repeat for the other side of the tractor.
    4. Glue the front of the tractor on.
  6. Before attaching the top and back of the tractor, mark on the pieces where your straw is going to stick out, one on the back and the top.
  7. With parental supervision, take a sharp pencil or scissors and cut a hole where you marked on both pieces. Put one of your straws through the hole in the back of the tractor. Glue this piece onto the base.
  8. Take the top piece and put the straw through the hole you cut. Glue the top piece onto the base.
      Important! You want to put the straw through the holes before finishing the tractor because it's not possible to get the straw through the holes later.
  9. Measure one of your other straws against the base of the tractor and cut two pieces from it that are a little wider than the base. Glue or tape these pieces on, one more toward the front and the other more toward the back.
  10. Cut your skewers a bit longer than the straw to make sure your wheels have something to spin around and then poke a hole in each bottlecap so they will stay on the skewers. Put a bottlecap on one end of the skewer and slide the other end through the straw before putting the other bottlecap on.
  11. Take the balloon and cut off a small part of the end of the balloon you blow into. Put that part of the balloon onto the end of the straw and twist the balloon around the straw, using tape to make sure there aren't any holes for air to escape.
  12. Once you've taped the balloon onto the straw, your tractor is ready to roll!