In retrospect, my high school extracurricular options kinda sucked. Yesterday was UW-Stout’s big Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, pitting teams of high school students against each other in heated contraption battle. This was the second year of Stout’s contest. For this year’s theme, competitors had to swap an old-school, energy-wasting light bulb with an energy-efficient bulb (aka, the twisty kind). And they had to do it in at least 20 steps. (No light bulbs got screwed in or out, just switches flipped.)

The New Auburn and Thorp teams took top honors, and will go on to the national competition at Perdue University. New Auburn’s entry – "Super Mario World Goes Neon" – used 46 steps, and as if that weren’t enough, they used a Super Mario theme. Man, kids these days. Over at the Leader-Telegram, you can read a description of Mario machine. I’ve yet to find a video, though.

> Check out photos from the event!