High school students investigate how force, motion, energy transfer, and simple machines work by designing and building a Rube Goldberg machine that completes one clear task safely and reliably. Across seven weeks, they move through a real engineering cycle of planning, prototyping, testing, failing, revising, and rebuilding with stronger materials and supervised tool use. The work builds critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and self-direction as teams document evidence in testing logs, explain design choices in live walkthroughs, and improve their machine until it works three times in a row. The experience ends in a public showcase where students demonstrate their final machine, describe how each step works, and reflect on how persistence, teamwork, and revision shaped the result.

Students will design, build, test, and revise a high school-level Rube Goldberg machine that completes one clear task safely and reliably three times in a row. They will explain how force, motion, gravity, friction, energy transfer, cause-and-effect, and one or more simple machines work in each step of the system using accurate, age-appropriate engineering language. Students will use tools and materials responsibly, document failures and revisions in testing logs, and apply feedback from peer debriefs, design conferences, and gallery walks to improve performance. They will also strengthen collaboration, problem-solving, and presentation skills by making shared decisions, troubleshooting as a team, and giving a live walkthrough of their finished machine to classmates, families, and community visitors.

Students will create high school–level engineering products throughout the lab, including simple machine mini-builds, chain-reaction prototypes, planning sketches, testing logs, revision notes, safety checklists, and final build plans. Each team will produce a durable Rube Goldberg machine that completes one approved task, can be reset efficiently, and runs successfully three times in a row during the reliability challenge. For the exhibition, teams will present an engineering expo station with labeled machine steps, a live walkthrough explaining force, motion, energy transfer, and simple machines, and a short reflection on how testing, failures, and redesign strengthened the final build. Sticky-note feedback from classmates, families, and community guests will be collected as part of the final evidence of learning.

Start with a Chain Reaction Reveal: trigger a fast, high school-appropriate teacher-built machine that completes a clear task, then have students map the cause-and-effect steps they noticed on sticky notes. Move into a Design Detective Walk with photos, short clips, and real mechanisms around the room so teams can identify simple machines, force, motion, gravity, friction, and energy transfer in action. Then run a 10-minute Build-It Break-It challenge where teams use the same materials to move an object and hit a target, followed by a quick debrief using “What worked? What failed? What will we change next?” End with a Mystery Mission choice activity where students inspect possible final tasks, choose one they may want their machine to complete, and hear that the goal of the lab is to build a safe, reliable machine that can do its job three times in a row for a live showcase.

Host a high school–style Chain Reaction Showcase Night where teams run their machines three times in a row for classmates, families, Gary Lewis, and invited community partners such as a local engineer, carpenter, maintenance worker, or hardware store staff member. Set up the space like an Engineering Expo with team stations that feature the machine, clear step labels, testing logs, revision evidence, and a short live walkthrough in which students explain the task, identify the simple machines or forces in each step, and describe how energy moves through the system. After the demonstrations, visitors complete a gallery walk and leave sticky-note feedback on engineering choices, reliability, problem-solving, and teamwork growth. End with a reset-and-run round so teams show that their machine can be restarted safely, efficiently, and reliably.