The Rube Goldberg machine competition organized by Avon middle school taught the 5^th grade students basic engineering design through a fun project.  The hands-on problem solving and teamwork provided a great learning experience.

The multifaceted design project required that the students design a working structure of simple machines while also sticking to a budget.  Building materials were limited to cardboard tubes, hot glue, strings, marbles, and other odds-and-ends that they “purchased” from the school store.

Each small group designed and built a structure using their new knowledge of simple machines.  Each design had to effectively interface with the structures created by other groups in the classroom.  The classroom spent weeks building and testing their machine designs.  Their hard work paid off at an exciting chance to compete against the other classrooms with their Rube Goldberg machine.

Professor Ray Decarlo and graduate students Rick Meyer and Julianne Dickerson provided mentoring to the 5th graders in this project.