Richard Froese
South Peace News
A team of students from Kinuso School won the second annual High Prairie School Division junior high Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) competition March 22 at Prairie River Junior High School in High Prairie.
Two teams from Prairie River, Kinuso, Georges P. Vanier School in Donnelly, and Roland Michener School in Slave Lake competed in the event where teams were required to create a Rube Goldberg machine with specific requirements.
Prairie River won the event in 2023.
“It was a very close competition,” says Science teacher Kim Elliott, who co-ordin- ated the event.
“All the teams did very well.”
Kinuso will retain the trophy until next year’s competition, which will be held at Kinuso, she says.
However, the trophy was not available for the event.
No team was able to pop a balloon within the time limit, although projects were scored on a variety of factors, including the function of machines and several transitions.
Prairie River principal Troy Runzer says the school is striving to build the STEM program.
“At Prairie River, we want to improve and expand it every year,” Runzer says.
“We want to expose students to all the STEM components.”
A Rube Goldberg machine is a chain reaction-type of machine or contraption intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and impractically overly complicated way.
Usually, the machines consist of a series of simple unrelated devices; the action of each triggers the initiation of the next and eventually results in achieving a stated goal.
