This week, more than 15 youngsters in Laurel are working together to tip one cup of water into another. Of course, considering the project it's much more complicated than that.
Using cardboard boxes, tubes, marbles and toy cars, the third-, fourth- and fifth-graders attending a one-week camp sponsored by the Laurel Historical Society are turning the simple task into a convoluted, multi-step process in the style of a Rube Goldberg cartoon.
"It's all about just giving kids an outcome and letting them be creative," said camp instructor Fran Lotz, who teaches at Galway Elementary School in Silver Spring, "because so much of that is taken away in the school system, because it's such a prescribed curriculum."
Rube Goldberg, who died in 1970, is famous for a series of drawings depicting wacky contraptions that performed simple tasks in indirect and complex ways. His work has inspired international contests challenging high school and college students to create simple machines that perform a "task of the year" in more than 20 steps.
At the Laurel Rube Goldberg Camp, students work in groups of four, using everyday items to insert five or more "actions" into the process of moving water from one cup to another, Lotz said, with an action being anything that transfers energy from one item to another.
"It gives them a chance to interact with the other kids, collaboratively and just to let them be scientists, be inventors, be little engineers," Lotz said.
Lindsey Baker, executive director of the Laurel Historical Society, said that Rube Goldberg-style projects were a good fit for the camp, given her organization's goal of incorporating STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) into its history education.
The student projects will be judged on July 28, the last session of the four-day camp, based on artistry and construction, use of everyday items, the inclusion of five or more steps and whether or not it accomplishes the task. The top three will be awarded cash prizes.
"They've been doing great," said Heather Easton, 15, a volunteer at the camp. "They came up with pretty much all of this themselves."