The Pancake Fly Trap
Event Location: Orange County STEM Saturday
Competition: Energy Transfer Machine
Division: 3-5
School: Thornebrooke Elementary
Team Name: Fly S.W.A.Ters
Project Name: The Pancake Fly Trap
Team Size: 3
No one wants a fly to land on top of their delicious stack of pancakes. The Everything Restaurant has installed the newest bug prevention invention – The Pancake Fly Trap – to protect their customers’ yummy stacks! Check out this video to see just how it works.
The machine starts when the fly zips down into the restaurant.
The attached second string pulls on the lever of the battery pack closing the electric circuit and turning on the motor.
The paddle on the motor knocks the ball down the ramp turning its potential energy into kinetic energy which eventually pushes the pole that pushes the erasers off the ledge so that they can pendulum swing.
The kinetic energy of the pendulum knocks a second ball down into the right side of the pulley causing the left side to rise. Inside the left cup of the pulley is a tall pole that pushes up on the dominos.
The dominos knock a small marble down the black ramp which hits the tip of the screw-like toy. The arm of the screw goes round and round until it knocks the tape roll causing it to fall onto the lever of the Matchbox track. The potential energy of the car (wheel and axel) turns into kinetic energy as it eventually rolls down the ramp hitting the second pendulum.
The second pendulum is made from two meter sticks taped together because they need to reach the top of our GIANT marble run. At the top of the yardsticks is a small pole that pushes a marble onto the marble run.
The marble eventually falls out of the bottom of the marble run hitting the dominos at the bottom. The kinetic energy of one transfer into each waiting domino until the spatula hits the fly.
The goal is to hit the fly so that it cannot land on the pancakes! Here is the full run of The Pancake Fly Trap in action.
We hope you enjoyed our creative solution to saving your yummy pancakes!
Made by Thornebrooke 5th graders: Tyler M., Shane F., and Callum B.