Serious brain power has gone into setting up a complex machine that starts with turning forks, incorporates a mousetrap and a water wheel and ends with a can being crushed ready for recycling.
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Students from the Emmanuel College science club have been hard at work creating an entry for a ‘spaghetti machine’ contest.
The device is so named due to its incorporation of complex processes that lead to a simple outcome.
Student Piper Hinkley, 16, explained that the almost-finished device will kick-start a string of actions that will end with a bowling ball crushing a can before it is swept into a recycling bin.
The contest, run by the University of Melbourne, tests students’ engineering, maths, science and project management skills.
Later this year they will also have the chance to show off their creation at a Maker Fest being held in October.
The October 21-22 festival will be hosted by South West TAFE and local schools.
TAFE teaching quality centre manager Robin Smith said it would give students and other south-west residents the chance to showcase their use of new technology.
“It’s going to be a place for inventors, tinkerers, builders, crafters and wannabe-scientists to showcase their stuff and see what others are doing,” he said.
“There will be demonstrations of cutting edge technologies and creative activities that will hopefully inspire others to dabble in making and inventing.”
