Wash Off The Pandemic!
Event Location: Virtual
Competition: Energy Transfer Machine
Division: 3-5
School: Sally Ride Elementary
Team Size: 6
Wash Off the Pandemic is an energy transfer machine built by Sally Ride Elementary School students. The idea is to represent “the new normality” in the last 13 months. The team’s members recreated a real-life situation where a child comes home after practicing alone with his soccer ball. The child of the story not only requires the face mask to not contaminate the family but also soap, paper towel, wipes, and hand sanitizer to keep hands and the ball clean of any kind of germs. All those products acquired an astronomical price due to the very high demand! All members of the team still wondering why the toilet paper disappeared even before the Pandemic crisis! 🙂 That is part of the history and it is included in this project.
Definition of Energy Transfer Machine
An energy transfer machine does what its name says; it transfers energy. It is known as the Golber machine after Rube Goldberg who made cartoons about slightly complicated gadgets and machines.
Materials Used (Quantity)
- Soccer ball (1)
- Face Mask (30)
- Electric wire (4)
- 1.5 V Battery (2)
- Electric switch (1)
- Toy car (1)
- Domino pieces (51)
- Empty Paper towel roll (1)
- Empty toilet paper roll (1)
- New toilet paper roll (2)
- Clorox wipes container (1)
- Lysol container (1)
- Hand sanitizer (1)
- Gears and lego parts (6)
- Wet Wipes package
- Tissue box (1)
- Tape roll (2)
Team Members
Adelina – Alex – Brendon – Enmanuel- Kensleigh – Neil – Sasha
Purpose of Mechanism
The purpose of this machine is to dispense hand sanitizer in a silly but unique long way.
Mechanism
1. Put the ball down in a bag. 
2. The ball weight flips a switch. 2 
3. The switch turns on the electric gear mechanism and it rotates. 4. The pole attached to the gear releases the car. 
5. The car hits the glove that hits the first dominoes piece. Path of the car to the glove 
6. The dominoes pieces are close enough to produce the repeated effect of pieces falling down, one after the other. 
7. The loose arm transfers mechanical energy from one dominoes piece to another. 
8. The dominoes piece hits the jumbo piece attached to the card that holds the school bus. The package of blue face mask will stop the first car from going to the second set of dominoes pieces. 
9. The school bus hits the Clorox container that rolls down helped by the gravity. 
10. The plastic Clorox container hits another set of dominoes pieces 
11. The last piece in the dominoes set lightly touches the metal ball transferring the energy that it needs to break the inertia. 
Path of the ball to the mask 
12. The ball goes through a face mask to finally hit very hard the head of the hand sanitizer 
13. The hand sanitizer is pumped out and the child can clean at least her hands! 
Wash Off The Pandemic!
Our machine starts with a child going inside after practicing soccer who wants to sanitize her hands.
- Put the ball down in a bag. The stored chemical energy of the human body is transformed into mechanical energy or movement.
- The ball weight flips a switch. Mechanical energy is a transfer from one object to another, due to the gravitational/ weight force.
- The switch turns on the electric gear mechanism and it rotates. Mechanical energy into electrical, into mechanical energy transfer
- The pole attached to the gear releases the car. Mechanical energy releases the car. The potential energy of the car is transformed into mechanical.
- The car hits the glove that hits the first dominoes piece. the mechanical energy goes from the glove to the first piece of dominoes. The package of blue face masks will stop the car from going to the second set of dominoes pieces.
- The dominoes pieces are close enough to produce the repeated effect of pieces falling down, one after the other. The mechanical energy goes from one piece to another, 51 times.
- The loose arm transfers mechanical energy from one domino’s piece to another.
- The dominoes piece hits the jumbo piece attached to the card that holds the school bus. mechanical energy from the jumbo piece to the school bus.
- The school bus hits the Clorox container that rolls down helped by the gravity. The potential energy in the bus’s mechanism was transformed into kinetic energy when the bus started moving. This mechanical energy was transferred to the Clorox wipes container.
- The plastic Clorox container hits another set of dominoes pieces, transferring this way its mechanical energy to the first piece, and this one to the second, and so on, unit the last piece of the second set.
- The last piece in the dominoes set lightly touches the metal ball transferring the energy that it needs to break the inertia. To keep the ball in place, in a balanced system, we used toilet paper. The mechanical energy provided by the dominoes piece and the gravitational energy make the ball slowly roll down,
- The ball goes through a face mask to finally hit very hard the head of the hand sanitizer thanks to the Earth’s gravity the mechanical energy is transferred from the ball to the hand sanitizer pump mechanism.
- The hand sanitizer is pumped out and the child can clean at least her hands!
We tried this mechanism more than a hundred times. We finally did it, but Wash Off the Pandemic is definitely not an easy task! We all need to work as a team, wear our masks, keep our social distancing, and of course, get vaccinated! Together we can do it!!
This website and its content was approved by Ms. Berriz.
This was such a great project in so many ways. Making it relevant to the pandemic was exceptional, and probably released a lot of anxiety in the process. The energy transfers all worked well and just can’t say enough about the theme. Outstanding!
What a great project! Really like the utilization of so many materials. Way to go!
Hi, This is Sasha. Thank you for the comment
EXCELLENT PROJECT !!!! based on the energy transmitted by bodies where the materials used are mostly from the pandemic. Very up to date !!!!
Hi, This is Sasha. Thank you for the comment
I love this! Their way to explain the energy transformation using these Covid-19 materials is so creative! Great job Sally Ride students! You are amazing!👏👏👏
Hi, This is Sasha. Thank you for the comment
Wonderful utilization of a Rube Goldberg machine! I love that you were able to solve a global problem using technology
Hi, i am Emmanuel. Thank you for the comment. It was our first time doing this! And it was a great experience!
Hi, This is Sasha. Thank you for the comment
Hello Mrs.Cameron i really loved this project to I think this was an awesome project
I absolutely love this! Rube Goldberg machines are my favorite. You guys worked so hard to put this together and solve all the problems you had along the way. Great job! You should all be proud of yourselves.
Hi, I’m Kensleigh. Thank you for your comment. I loved making the Rube Goldberg Machine. It was so much fun.
Super creative. These kids are awesome!
Hi, This is Sasha. Thank you for the comment
Beautiful website design. My favorite part of the machine was when the domino didn’t push the large marble and everyone moaned, but then it did push it, it’s like it was trying to build the suspense, great work!
Hi, This is Sasha. Thank you for the comment
It looks like team planning was a must!! Great job!
Hi, i am Emmanuel. Thank you for the comment. It was our first time doing this! And we had a lot of fun!
hi I’m kensleigh. thank you for your comment. it was a lot of work, we had to plan it first. our project is done now and it works great! we enjoyed it alot.
Very creative and timely idea, and good job persevering to get it to work!
Hi, This is Sasha. Thank you for the comment
Hello Sasha this was impressive I was surprised that this actually worked!
This is a great project. Your creativity and imagination is immeasurable. The selection of materials and design of this project is thought provoking; considering the current covid-19 challenges. No doubt, you’ve educated all of us; particularly myself. Your idea for the project provides exceptional educational value; science for humanity. The size of your team indicates enviable character traits of team work and cooperation. I enjoyed watching the video. Good luck in your scientific inquiry and keep up the great work!
Hi, i am Emmanuel. Thank you for the comment. It was our first time doing this! And we had a lot of fun!
cool
Hi, Ms.Berriz all these activities you guys did were interesting and I was surprised Wash Off The Pandemic! one worked because at one point when the marble got to the blue track it stoped so I thought it was not going to go anymore but it did so great work to your whole team you are awesome Ms.Berriz and we are proud to have you as are STEM lab teacher!☺☺☺☺💕💕💕😃😃😋😋😄😀
I love this project! It looks so fun! I know that it took a lot of coordination to figure out exactly where to meticulously place items in order to keep the energy flowing. I think that the pieces that you chose to include in your experiment are also very relevant. Did it really take you 100 times to get a perfect run? Did it work more than once? Just curious how that all unfolded. I really enjoyed reading about this project and I hoped you learned a lot of science, too. Great job!
Hi, I am Sasha, Thank you for your comment!!!
We actually tried so many times! More than 100! The first it worked, the battery of my teacher’s cell phone died! 🙁 So it worked again, this time recording with my laptop. I was so excited to see it working that I didn’t record the last part with the hand sanitizer! I know, it was so crazy! But then it worked again and we were able to record the whole thing this time!