By Shawn McGrath, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
WEST LAFAYETTE — Highland High School’s Rube Goldberg team will just have to put its dynastic plans on hold for a year. The team did not finish in the top three during the national high school competition at Purdue University on Saturday.
The nine-member team finished first in regional competition in February. Ten high school teams took part in the national event, but members of the Highland team didn’t know how they placed. Only the top three teams were announced.
“Ultimately, I think the kids did well,” said Daniel Kallenberg, a Highland chemistry teacher and team sponsor.
The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest is in honor of cartoonist Goldberg, who drew fantastically complicated machines to perform simple chores, according to Purdue officials. The rules of this year’s contest required teams to build a contraption to change an incandescent light bulb to a more energy-efficient lighting source in at least 20 steps.
Some of the steps in the Highland gadget included moving toy cars up a ladder onto a bunk bed and using fingernail polish to dissolve a Styrofoam cup.
Each team had three attempts to make the contraption work. Points were deducted if the machine had problems. Kallenberg said they had kinks in two of the three runs.
The team has placed first in regionals three times in the last four years. Despite the disappointing end at nationals, team members were upbeat.
“It was a lot of teamwork,” said senior Brittane Foy, 18, the daughter of Malcolm and Kitty Foy and a two-year member of the team. Foy plans on studying a subject in the medical field in college.
“I had so much fun with it,” she said. “You get the creativity going. I love all the physics in it.”
Kim Medaris, Purdue spokeswoman, said Thorp High School in Thorp, Wis., captured first place. Cornerstone Discovery Group Team B, a home-school organization in Champaign, Ill., placed second. New Auburn High School in New Auburn, Wis., finished third. St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., won the college contest.
Like Foy, David Ragsdale, 18, the son of Jim and Lisa Ragsdale, said the competition’s fun comes from the teamwork and ingenuity needed to complete the task.
“It was great,” said Ragsdale, who plans on attending Anderson University to study music and computer science. “Just working with other people to solve a problem in a way that most people wouldn’t think of solving it.”
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The Highland High School Rube Goldberg team
Chelsie Burris, senior
Jordan Dunn, junior
Brittane Foy, senior
Mandy Halsell, senior
Jake Holzman, senior
Shelbi Macken, senior
Dylen Pike, junior
David Ragsdale, senior
Jeremy Stork, senior
