Rube Goldberg lives!

Hillel Academy fifth grader Elie Gelfman (left) and fourth grader Natan Bushee work on assembling a “Rube Goldberg machine” during a recent project for Hillel’s middle school students. Such machines are named for the Jewish cartoonist (1883-1970) who was famous for making images of ridiculously complex devices for performing simple tasks. After a trip to Discovery World that included a workshop on robotics, the students were divided into three teams and given two hours to construct out of refuse a machine that would ring a bell. Photo provided by Jen Huber/Hillel Academy.