No sooner was the annual Technion School Challenge announced, students at Bruriah got busy designing and building a complex Rube Goldberg machine. The Technion invites teams of high school students (9-12) from schools around the world to create Israel themed Rube Goldberg machines. This challenge encourages students to use out-of-the-box problem solving and teamwork to build a multi-step, chain reaction machine, and creatively incorporate Israel themed elements and texts into their entry. The machine is a wacky contraption that is deliberately over-engineered to perform a simple task by setting off a comical chain reaction; such as dominoes falling over, which are unnecessary and complicate an otherwise simple process, in order to perform a final task that could have easily been done.
Guided by Bruriah faculty member Dr. Bracha Erblich, the seven-member team made its theme of the Rube Goldberg machine a tour through Israel, highlighting technological advances and contributions made by Israel. The tour started in Haifa in the north and headed south to Petach Tikvah. A USB traveled down a zipline which then knocked over a ruler, letting go of a slinky that went down a flight of stairs, symbolizing ReWalk in Petach Tikvah. Other advances the Bruriah students included were the Uzi gun, Iron Dome, and PillCam. A waze banner that unfolded, thanking the viewer for joining the students on the tour through Israel and a map of Israel that lit up using LED lights were the finale. Teams submit their entries by e-mailing a video of the project to the Technion.
Team heads Zahava Brown (’18) and Adina Wiesel (‘19), along with members Shira Held (‘19), Rachi Levy (‘18), Avigail Schiff (‘19), Adina Schwartz (‘18), and Adina Strong (’19) spent hours upon hours conceptualizing then executing the plan for the machine to work prior to submitting it for consideration for the 2018 theme “Celebrating Israel’s 70th birthday.” Making the machine actually work took a lot of time and patience. The team had to constantly reset steps when the machine wouldn’t run through. They learned to depend on each other as a team and together accomplished what seemed at first to be a daunting task.
The team must adhere to a set of rules about what types of objects and materials can be used to construct the machine, the minimum and maximum number of steps and elements.
A panel of judges select the winners based on their creative rendition of “Israel Celebrates 70 Years of Independence” and Israel themes as a Rube Goldberg Machine. Winners will be selected using specified judging criteria and will be awarded recognition and prizes. The winning teams were not yet announced at the time of this printing.
By Rachi Levy (‘18), Adina Schwartz (‘18)
