Engineering Begins with a Chain Reaction
Students in Wisconsin Lutheran High School’s Introduction to Engineering Design course began the year with The Ridiculously Overengineered Introduction, a Rube Goldberg-style challenge. Working in small teams, students used simple materials to build tabletop chain-reaction machines. Each machine began with a single touch, completed at least three actions, and ended by dropping a marble into a cup.
While the machines were intentionally playful, the process introduced the real-world engineering skills students will practice throughout the year: collaborating, designing, building, testing, learning from failure, and improving.
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