The Bustling Energy Transfer City
Created By: Mynie N. (7th) and Thena N. (6th)
From: Osceola Science Charter School K-8
About Our Project:
The city we live in today always uses lots of energy so we wanted our project to be like a city. For the final task for our ETM, our goal is to water a plant to grow in our bustling city. We chose that task because plants are very important to our lives, giving us shelter, food, and oxygen so it’s important that we grow plants to help us thrive and grow in our daily lives.
Challenges:
We faced many challenges throughout our project. The most difficult task was to get each of the transfers to work consistently. It was hard to get the cardboard to always hit the marble so it could start rolling. The skewer sticks kept getting lose but we didn’t give up and had to fix it many times. The vertical seesaw also got loose a few times because of the tape. At first, we used tape as a platform to keep the marble from moving down the ramps until the vertical seesaw hit the tape and moved the marble but sometimes, the marble would just roll down the ramps due to vibration. We had to figure our how to move the marble when we wanted to. We decided to use a pipe cleaner to hold the marble in place so when the ambulance hit the seesaw, the pipe cleaner moved forward and releases the marble. The marble got stuck in many places such as rolling down ramps, dropping down from the funnel to the zig-zag ramp, transferring from one pipe to another, and even rolling off course so we had to block some pathways. Another challenge was setting up the large set of dominos. When one piece fell then the whole set came crashing down so we learned to set up 3 breaks so that not all of the dominos fell down. We closed the breaks when we were ready to go. The dump truck kept rolling down the ramp by itself. We investigated and found out that the vibration during the run was causing it to roll. Our solution was to not connect the ramp to the tower but to have a separate box to hold it up instead. We learned to have patience and perseverance during this project. Every times something works, something else breaks but in the end, we finally made a complete run and cheered for joy!
Energy Transfer Intro:
Energy Transfer Run:
Energy Transfers Explanations:
Energy Transfer 1: The train’s battery uses chemical energy and converts it to electrical energy to move the motor to convert it to kinetic energy, which makes the train move and hits a cardboard piece.
Energy Transfer 2: The cardboard piece then hits a marble, transferring the kinetic energy to move the marble which then converts the marble’s potential energy to kinetic energy. That happens a few more times until the last marble hits the last cardboard piece.
Energy Transfer 3: When the marble hits the last carboard piece, the carboard then hits a line of dominos. Each domino transfers its kinetic energy to the next domino in front of it until the dominos hits the marble that’s on top of the blue ramp.
Energy Transfer 4: The marble that was on top the the blue ramp converts its potential energy to kinetic. Then, it rolls down a few other ramps until it falls into a funnel. The marble rolls around the funnel and down the funnel hole.
Energy Transfer 5: When the marble falls down the funnel hole, it starts to roll down a zig-zag ramp and rolls down into a series of metal tubes. Then, it falls down into one end of the seesaw.
Energy Transfer 6: When the marble fall into one side of the seesaw, it transfers its kinetic energy to the other side, moving it up which causes it to hit a small cardboard that a domino is sitting on. The domino on the cardboard falls down, hitting another domino in front of it and hits a series of dominos, which then transfers its kinetic energy to push a pickup truck down a ramp.
Energy Transfer 7: The pickup truck is connected to the green garbage truck like a sideways pulley so it transfers kinetic energy to the green garbage truck. That makes the garbage truck move with lots of kinetic energy forward and hit another set of dominos. The dominos then hits an ambulance, transferring its kinetic energy to the ambulance.
Energy Transfer 8: The ambulance rolls down a small ramp and hits a sideways seesaw. The sideways seesaw transfers its kinetic energy to a pipe cleaner, which moved and released the marble that has potential energy and converts to kinetic energy as it rolls down the ramps. Then, that marble hits the last set of dominos.
Energy Transfer 9: When the marble hits the domino, it transfers the kinetic energy down the line of dominos. The last domino hits and pushes a red firetruck down a ramp.
Energy Transfer 10: When the red firetruck rolls down the ramp, it also pulls a black foam piece which lets go of a metal marble. The metal marble rolls down a green ramp and falls into a blue dump truck. The metal marble transfers its kinetic energy to move the dump truck down a ramp and hit a pendulum. That pendulum then swings and transfers its kinetic energy to hit a water bottle. That water bottle falls over and finishes the task to water the plant.
Materials Used:
- Battery Powered Train with Train Tracks
- Cardboard
- Marbles (Metal and glass)
- Dominos (Toys and wood)
- Foam
- Plastic Ramps
- Marble Run Slides
- Tape (Duct tape and packaging tape)
- Bath tissue rolls
- Cardboard boxes
- Rulers
- Pipes (Metal and plastic)
- Wooden Rod
- City toys (Cars, buildings, people, animals, nature, and signs)
- Wooden Skewers
- Wooden Construction Toy Pieces (Peg Strips and screws)
- Wooden Jenga Pieces
- Gift-Wrap Strings
- Plastic Water bottle
- Plant
- Pipe Cleaner
Amazing! Well executed 👍🏻 Congratulations girls!
I love that you took a current problem and found a great solution. Great job!
Such a beautiful job, down to the presentation! The idea was great and your ability to execute it so well shows that your duo truly is energetic!
Well done with your ET machine theme, it does look like a city and cities definitely needs more greenery. And great job with the details as well.
This really looks like a bustling city! It looks like a lot of work went into it creation. Great job!