Kimberley Rube Goldberg team earns national berth

Kimberly - 1st place Kimberly Kitchen

Post-Crescent: There’s a collapsible kitchen in Kevin Janota’s technology education classroom at Kimberly High School.

It features all the equipment one would expect a kitchen to have: a stand mixer, spatulas, a tea kettle, a toaster, a cheese grater and measuring cups.

But this is no ordinary kitchen.

It’s the Rube Goldberg Machine the aptly-named Kimberly Kitchen Team will take to the national competition in Columbus, Ohio on Saturday.

“We just need to take simple, everyday objects and try to make complex tasks out of it,” said junior Chris Thompson.

The simple task of applying a Band-Aid takes the Kimberly Kitchen contraption 69 steps to complete. Students enroll in the Rube Goldberg Machine Class at the high school, split up into teams and create their masterpieces.

The kitchen team — which includes students Sam Barwick, Kyle Downham, Carter Eckes, Rachel Foster, Logan Hartman, Stephen Littrell, Logan Paalman, Thompson and Grant Zoromski — took first place overall and received the safety award at the regional competition.

They will compete against 16 other teams from around the nation on Saturday.

Kimberly High School is no stranger to the national Rube Goldberg Machine Competition. A group of Papermakers won it all in 2012 and another took third in the nation in 2013, Janota said.

The team is more excited than nervous for the experience.

“I’m excited because I’ve never gone to nationals for something,” Thompson said. “It’ll be a fun experience where we can show everyone what we can do.”

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