sci

d What You Neese the

hanger (U wire clothes ard tube type with a cardbo nded wire.) attached to open-e string dowel rubber bands duct tape (1 inch in PVC plastic pipe et long) diameter and 3 fe l (1/4 inch in wooden dowe st 3 feet long) diameter and at lea tape, PVC (You can find duct ooden dowels plastic pipe and w e.) at a hardware stor

l a c i n a h c e M Grabber
rubber bands PVC pipe duct tape

Pick up trash without touching it!

wire hands

Engineering Scoop
This mechanical grabber makes it easy to grab trash. You can lift up trash without bending over. Each material plays an important role in the design. The dowel pulls the hands together to capture an item and pushes them apart to release it. The duct tape or rubber bands keep the trash from slipping off the grabber.

the hanger. cardboard tube from e th ve o m e R 1 e hands of o sides to form th Reshape the tw er the grabber. ed part of the hang ok ho e th t u o n et). 2 Straighte e rod in your clos th er ov s ng ha at ith duct (the part th ightened hanger w ra st e th to el w do 3 Attach a hanger and dowel ed en ht ig ra st e th tape. Place ds astic pipe. The han pl C PV e th of d into one en e end ld poke out of on of the hanger shou ke e dowel should po of the pipe and th out of the other. each s or duct tape to 4 Add rubber band the hanger. of the hands of to make the hands 5 Pull on the dowel sh on e together and pu of the grabber com e them. the dowel to releas paper? A soda pick up a piece of u yo an C . t u o 6 Try it r? rove your grabbe p im u yo n ca ow can? H

on

Another simple way to make a grabber is to create tongs out of wooden paint stirring sticks (you can get them for free at any paint store), rubber bands, and paper. Which grabber do you think will work better? Try them both! Which would you rather use?

folded paper

roop 2628 of Maynard, MA Sent in by Girl Scout T

2005 WGBH Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. ZOOM and the ZOOM words and related indicia are trademarks of the WGBH Educational Foundation. PBS KIDS is a trademark of PBS. Used with permission. All other rights reserved. ZOOM is produced by WGBH Boston. Funding for ZOOM is provided by the National Science Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Weezie Foundation, and public television viewers. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0337323. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.