%20(4).png)
.png)
The team is comprised of 7th and 8th graders
(WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.) – St. Louis School’s Rube Goldberg team earned a huge accomplishment over the weekend.
The team was named the Middle School World Champion at the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest at Purdue University on Saturday.
“It was very nerve wracking and after they called the second place winner, I didn’t even think we were going to get first. But then they called our name and we were all so excited,” said Lucy Brelage.
In addition to taking the top overall prize, the team also earned an award for "Best Final Step."
Members of the St. Louis team are Elsa Schneider, Myra Meer, Allie Peetz, Lucy Brelage, Parker Smith, Millie Spielmann, Samuel Rodriguez, Lydia Dwyer, Mason Leising, and Damien Hooten.
St. Louis Junior High math teacher Michael Brelage is the coach.
Here is the moment they were named champions of the competition:
Rube Goldberg contests challenge students to build machines from everyday objects that perform common, simple tasks. It is a STEAM competition that encourages creativity, ingenuity, teamwork and learning from previous mistakes.
The competition this year was themed around how to feed a pet.
St. Louis created ‘Monkey On The Moon’ and they built machine to feed bananas to a pet monkey after crash-landing on the moon.
“The rest of the teams had just 13 to 15 steps with their machine and we had 35, I was shocked how many more steps we had than some of the other teams,” said Parker Smith.
St. Louis Principal Patty Mauer said she and the entire staff is proud of how the students persevered and overcame obstacles at the competitions.
“I couldn’t be prouder of them and how they work together as a team. I think that is alot of what this group did, they communicated effectively and worked very well together,” Mauer said.
Before advancing to the championship round, the team won the Middle School division during a competition at Batesville High School on February 22.