Click here to download a PDF instruction sheet (English & Spanish)

Energy is power derived from the utilization of physical or chemical resources, especially to provide light and heat or to work machines. We also call this power!

In Oklahoma, roughly one-quarter of our workforce is employed directly or indirectly in the energy industry. Oil and natural gas maintain a commanding lead, but wind energy has begun to make a noticeable economic impact. Conventional oil and gas refers to petroleum, or crude oil, and raw natural gas extracted from the ground by drilling wells and pumping the materials out. One of the biggest challenges is figuring out how to safely transport these extractions to a refinery where they can be converted into energy.

Your Goal: Develop a pipeline system to transport a marble from one side of the room to the other. But, it's not as simple as it sounds! You need to incorporate:

four angles in your design, one of which is a right angle (90 degrees)
The difference in height from one end of your pipe to the other can be no more than 18 inches. You can start on a chair or other piece of furniture or use your materials to build up the start of your pipeline.
You have to avoid environmentally protected areas, water, or other hazards that you'll have to consider in your plan.
Use the Engineer Design Process to help guide your construction.

What is the engineer design process?

The Design Process encourages creative problem-solving and can be repeated many times to improve on designs and find multiple solutions.

Materials needed:

Paper
Tape
Marble/Ball
Pipecleaners
Paper clips
Pencil & paper
Recycled materials from around the home: paper towel or toilet paper tubes, plastic bottles, cardboard, newspaper and more!

Instructions:

Finding an area approximately 5’x5’
Layout objects to act as protect areas to avoid. Use this image on the right as a reference:
Sketch out your plan on a piece of paper and think about which of the materials you’d like to use and how many.
Build the pipeline!
Test it by allowing your marble to run through.
Now is our chance to improve upon your design! Did it successfully make it through the whole run? Great! See if you can make a more direct route with less material. If it didn’t make it through, how can you improve your design so that it does?

Now try…

Creating a pipeline from one country to another (from room to room in your house). See how long you can make it and use your furniture and walls as protected areas to avoid. See how long you can make it!