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Cardboard Automation Factory

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Grades 6-890-120 minSource: Creative Dad Company

Teams design a small cardboard factory line with simple sensors and mechanisms that sorts or moves objects automatically, then work to speed up its throughput.

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Every level teaches the same core idea — pick the one that fits your time, budget, and energy today.

Prep: 20 minActivity: 30 min1 session~$0/groupOne table or a clear section of floorBeginner-friendly

Setup

Print or hand-copy the essential prompt for Cardboard Automation Factory, then set out only paper, pencils, and the common or recycled items needed for one test. Use a tabletop representation whenever the original version mentions a room, specialized device, or digital tool; the learning comes from the decisions and evidence, not elaborate scenery.

Activity

  1. Define the central success test in Cardboard Automation Factory and make a paper planning sheet for the inputs, actions, and expected result.
  2. Represent the system without electronics by using labeled cards, paper controls, tokens, a ruler, or a student acting as the device; follow the same cause-and-effect rules described in the project.
  3. Run at least three cases, including one difficult or unexpected case, and record starting conditions, design choices, observations, and measured results.
  4. Revise one rule, layout, mechanism, or decision after the failed case, repeat it, and explain with the recorded evidence whether the change worked.

Done when: The group has completed Cardboard Automation Factory when it can run the finished line for an audience, reporting the improved throughput rate and point to the observation, measurement, comparison, or trial that supports its conclusion.

Materials

cardboard boxes, small motors or servo kit, marbles or small balls, tape, craft sticks, timer

Shown for the Quick Start version — switch tabs above to see what changes.

Disclosure: Materials links below go to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, Creative Dad Company earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

Steps

  1. Sketch a factory line layout and predict how many objects per minute it should be able to sort or move.
  2. Build the cardboard line with a motorized or mechanical sorting stage.
  3. Time the line's actual throughput, find it's slower than predicted or jams at one stage, and redesign that stage's sensor or mechanism.
  4. Run the finished line for an audience, reporting the improved throughput rate.

Standards it satisfies

  • NGSS · MS-ETS1-4

    Develop a model to generate data for iterative testing and modification of a proposed object, tool, or process such that an optimal design can be achieved.