Southwood Elementary – Energy Transfer Machine

Event Year: 2023
Event Location: Orange County STEM Saturday
Competition: Energy Transfer Machine
School: Southwood Elementary
Team Name: Southwood Elementary - Midnights
Project Name: Southwood Elementary - Night Sky
Team Size: 6

All About Us!

We are The Midnights! We are a team of 4th and 5th grade students from Southwood Elementary.

Fourth Grade Students	Fifth Grade Students
Grace	Zoey
Reina	Anabel
Terrence	Diana

All About Our Design

Our Energy Transfers in our machine: We pull the lever so the marble will go down into the inclined planes with some sand paper to reduce the friction. It will then lead into the other inclined plane, which leads into the corkscrew. The marble travels through the corkscrew and then hits the golf ball. The golf ball then hits the tennis ball. The tennis ball gains velocity from the spinning motor to travel down the ramp. It then hits the flap to pop the balloon at the end of the machine.

Electricity from the battery was used: We built a motor that is powered by 2 AA batteries. The motor spins the blade around to hit the tennis ball as it comes down the ramp, adding more velocity to the ball so that it can hit the flap harder to pop the balloon.