One of my personal favorite activities to get students involved in simple machines but remote! Teams of students get a virtual box of everyday items and are required to complete mini-Rube Goldbergs using these materials on Google Slides. Increasing in difficulty as the levels progress, students must work together to apply these simple machines to accomplish each task. For example, the last challenge requires students to turn the page of a book. Simple, right? Until you can only use a spoon, string and tape! This activity allows tons of hands-on, kinesthetic exploration of simple machines. It's also a great scaffold if your students are building a (in person or virtual) Rube Goldberg later in the unit.