The Palmer Elementary team of Olivia Hans, Owen Knapp, Carson Terrell, and Chase Whitehead had to make a Rube Goldberg machine to knock down two pins. They ended up making one that knocked out the competition at the Broome-Tioga BOCES Engineering Day.

The winning squad used cardboard, tape, dominoes, and other materials to create a chain-reaction machine that led to a ball knocking down the two pins.

“We did have a few challenges we had to fix. We all worked together and put our thoughts into it and came up with a good idea that made our machine better,” said Hans.

“We had a problem to solve and we showed teamwork,” said Terrell.

Once the students showed the judges their machine, they felt good about their chances. But they didn’t know for sure until they heard the announcement.

“We were very surprised because at the start I said if we win we were going to go crazy,” said Knapp.

“We were proud, but we didn’t go crazy,” said Terrell.

But some students opened their eyes to what they can do in the field of engineering.

“You can build robots. You’re able to build things that you’ve never seen before,” said Knapp.