Pikachu’s Party Planners
Event Location: Orange County STEM Saturday
Competition: Energy Transfer Machine
Division: 3-5
School: Bay Meadows Elementary
Team Name: Pikachu's Party Planners
Project Name: Pikachu's Birthday Machine
Team Size: 6
Team Members: Finn B. (Grade 3), Shanvi L. (Grade 3), Florence J. (Grade 4), Jada W. (Grade 4), Tommy S. (Grade 5), and Victor L. (Grade 5)
Help Pikachu find all his presents and sing him Happy Birthday. The final objective of our Pikachu’s Birthday Machine is to play Happy Birthday. We use battery power at the very end of the machine with two AA batteries in the Snap Circuit set that plays the Happy Birthday song.
Steps/Energy Transfers Used in Pikachu’s Birthday Machine:
The hot wheel car launches: Kinetic and Mechanical Energies
The hot wheel car hits a book and falls: Gravitational and Kinetic Energies
The book falling pushes the roller skate down a ramp: Kinetic and Gravitational Energies
The roller skate hits the first book which begins the domino effect: Kinetic Energy
The final book pushes over the bowling pin: Kinetic Energy
The bowling pin falls and tugs the string that pulls up on the birthday present and releases the balloons: Mechanical and Gravitational Energies
The bowling pin falls and triggers the carboard tee to fall: Gravitational Energy
The cardboard tee falls which sends the baseball down the zipline: Mechanical and Gravitational Energies
The baseball hits the birthday present and knocks it over: Kinetic Energy
The birthday party hat (cone) falls off the birthday present: Kinetic Energy
The birthday party hat (cone) swings and bumps the mega block car: Kinetic Energy
The mega block car rolls down the ramp causing the birthday bag to lower to the ground: Mechanical and Gravitational Energies
When the birthday party bag lowers, a string pulls to release the marble at the top of the marble run: Mechanical Energy
The marble travels down the marble run: Gravitational Energy
The marble drops down onto the pencil board: Gravitational Energy
The marble collides into the Snap circuit board and plays happy birthday: Gravitational Energy
Materials: Hot wheels launcher, Rubber bands, Hot wheels car, Hot wheels track set, Wood boards, Saw horses, Books, Roller skate, Cable cord, Bowling pin, Yarn, Baseball, Cardboard, Painter’s tape, Safety pin, Hockey sticks, Plastic rod, Gifts bags, Balloons, Toy cupcakes, Fishing line, Patio chairs, Box wrapped like a present, Basket, Cone, Rocks, Ribbon, Step stool, Hook, Mega blocks, Mega blocks cart, Cardboard boxes, Free weights, Boogie board, Towel rack, Socks, Marble run sets, Ladders, Tables, Cork board, Marble, Canning funnel, Pencils, Glue, Snap circuit set with two AA batteries, Toy Pikachu, and other toy figurines.
Challenges We Encountered While Designing and Building the Pikachu Birthday Machine:
“Getting all the energy transfers to work perfectly and setting up after each attempt were the hardest parts of our project.” – Finn B.
“Testing the project over and over again was challenging. Setting up after each attempt was hard.” – Jada W.
“Getting everything to work and thinking how to fix everything that didn’t work a bunch of times was a big challenge.” – Victor L.
“The hardest part was when the marble would roll down and almost reach the end but it kept going in the wrong direction rather than to the pencil board. But it finally went right after doing it many times.” -Florence J.
“We had to make so many adjustments like how high something was or how large and heavy an object was. The hardest part was finding big enough reactions to continue energy transfers further down the machine.” -Tommy S.
Websites We Used for Ideas:
How To Make Any Rube Goldberg Machine Using These 6 Simples Machines? By Zach Contraptions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBLZUGgvqiE
Ice Cream Server Chain Reaction Machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5e0gcvU2JA&t=194s
Rube Goldberg Machine project: Raise the Flag: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhEDs6ON1Iw
