Rube Goldberg

               Over the mid-winter break, some students of Nouvel participated in the Rube Goldberg competition at Ferris State University. A Rube Goldberg Machine is a contraption that performs a simple task with multiple steps. This could include opening a door or even just turning on a fan. This year’s challenge was to pop a blown up balloon in twenty steps or more without human interaction, other than to start the machine. The Nouvel team, led by math teacher Mr. Marshall along with 13 other students, came in 5^th place out of 7. The team captains were Nick Day and Austin Himmelein. Along with them Catherine Day and Hannah Castillio were at the competition on Saturday.

                The machine took a total of 500 man hours and kids would come after school for about three to five hours. Some of the kids even came on the weekends or days off of school that most kids would go home and sleep. At the end, the machine had a total of 26 steps including a sling shot, domino effect, and a clamp of wood and a dragons head to pop the balloon. “it was a great experience this year and I think we will do a lot better next year now that we know what we are doing” Says Mr. Marshall. “The students were very helpful and they had a lot of fun too.” The team will be participating next year in this challenge so if anyone wants to be on the team next year, start thinking of great ideas to use for the simple task to complete.

C.J. Joynt ’13