On June 12th, our fourth grade students had a direct experience with trial and error - the standard "MO" for solving engineering questions. But, they did it with fun - and excitement - the St. Clare way!. Separate table groups worked together to create a piece of the machine. The ultimate goal (designed by the last table group) was for a tennis ball to fall into a basket off of a desk. Everything had to be a chain reaction. When something didn’t work, the students went back, made adjustments, and tried again. Fourth grade teacher Bethany MacNeur never thought she would hear students ask if they could skip recess and lunch to keep working!  But they did.  The class was able to successfully do the Rube Goldberg all the way through twice.  Take a look at this quick video which captured the action: