Area fifth grade students will put their engineering skills to the test this weekend during a hands-on competition at Lincoln Land Community College.

The college will host the 19th annual Springfield Area Engineer in the Classroom Rube Goldberg Showcase on Saturday, March 7. The event runs from 8:30 a.m. to approximately 3 p.m. and will take place in the Student Union on the lower level of Menard Hall at the LLCC Springfield campus on Shepherd Road. The event is free and open to the public.

This year’s challenge requires student teams to design and build a small car that moves 18 inches along a track, including traveling up a three-inch incline.

Seventeen classrooms of area fifth graders are participating in the competition. Each team has been working on its own Rube Goldberg-style device with support from volunteer engineers. Those volunteers visit classrooms to provide instruction on basic machines and engineering concepts and to offer guidance during the design process.

Organizers say the goal of the program is to introduce students to engineering and other science, technology, engineering, and math related career paths through hands-on learning.

Schools participating this year include Ball Chatham, Dubois Elementary, Graham Elementary, Little Flower, Morrisonville Elementary, Our Savior’s Lutheran, Riverton Middle School, Rochester Intermediate, Springfield Christian, Trinity Lutheran, and Beckemeyer Elementary School in Hillsboro.

Last year’s competition challenged students to build a device that could open a book. The winning entry locally came from a fifth grade class at Springfield Christian School.