Staples Tops at State Rube Goldberg Competition

The Staples High School Applied Science Club took top honors Saturday at the statewide Rube Goldberg Competition at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. The team took first place for the second year in a row and also won two other awards.  Pictured are (l-r)  are Ben Shey, Noah Johnson, Neloise Egipto, and Megumi Asada.  Missing from the photo is Clay Andrews. Their innovative, video game-themed machine had the only first-time perfect run of the competition. The win entitles them to enter the Nationals in March and members are trying to raise funds for the trip to Wisconsin. A Rube Goldberg machine, named after the American cartoonist and inventor, is a deliberately over-engineered or overdone machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex, mechanical fashion, usually using common everyday items and including a chain reaction. This year, the simple task was to have a hammer hit a nail, and each machine had to take at least 20 (non-electronic) steps to do it. The Staples machine had 22 steps and involved, among other things, ramps and golf balls, levers and pulleys, a spring-loaded tape measure, marbles, jars, and many other common household items. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo