The Rube Goldberg club at Corporate Landing Middle School held its third annual Rube Goldberg Championships last week with more machines entered than ever before. Throughout the first quarter, eight teams of two or three students worked on the type of machine that Webster’s dictionary describes as “a comically involved, complicated invention, laboriously contrived to perform a simple operation.” The simple operation this year was to “zip a zipper.”
“Through the club, students learn a great deal about the engineering design process, and sometimes what is envisioned is harder to make a reality than we think, said sixth-grade science teacher and club sponsor Brian Miller.
As a special surprise for students, parents and staff, Miller created his own Rube Goldberg machine, which ran the full length of the school auditorium and across the entire stage; it included over 20 different steps.
This year’s winning team built a machine that completed the task of zipping a zipper in 16 different steps and worked without a flaw. Team members were eighth-graders John Ashworth (a three-time champion) and Nathan Cote and sixth-grader Cody Kancso. All teams worked diligently in the spirit of science, engineering, Rube Goldberg, and fun. The machines are now on display in the school foyer.