PALMYRA — Rube Goldberg would have been proud of a young fan from St. Albans. Alicia Bickford, 15, had been fascinated with “Rube Goldberg” machines for some time, and when the opportunity to create one as a special credit project at Nokomis came along, Alicia was ready.

The Nokomis High School freshman is a gifted and talented student and was told that if she excelled in a course and could “compact the class time,” she could take on a special project of her choosing. Goldberg machines were the subject and Bickford substituted the planning and creation for an English class each week. She presented her completed project to Karen Lylis’ first-grade class 4 1/2 months later.

Bickford said her project used conduction, velocity, weights, pulleys and levers to snuff out a candle. At the start, a candle melted wax that was holding back a large marble. Once released, the marble proceeded down three runways and tipped a full soda bottle into a sand pail. This activated a series of sand pails on pulleys, ultimately dropping a weighted pail into a funnel of water which overflowed onto a scale. The scale was tipped, dropping a cup over the lighted candle, snuffing it out.

The entire machine was more than 7 feet tall and cost Bickford less than $40 to create.

Bickford, who will be graded on her project, was the only student who took advantage of the special offer, said Annette Houston of the program for the gifted and talented. She worked at school for more than three weeks, she said, and then finished her construction with a little carpentry help from her father, at home. “We had a hard time getting it out my front door,” said Bickford. She also had to make a written report on her project, including comparison shopping for parts and how she created the succession involved.

Bickford said that while she was a student at Hartland Junior High School, other students participated in an Odyssey of the Mind competition. “I saw a similar machine and after that, I always wanted to do it,” she said.

Watching the machine work was a special treat for the Palmyra first-graders, who had participated in an individual course about machines this year. “Knowledge and Skills for the Year 2000” was presented throughout SAD 48, using a specially trained staff.

Lylis involved her students in a variety of activities that encouraged them to explore the worlds of simple machines. She used manipulative experiments, reading and writing, comparing and contrasting by graphs, music and art projects. Each student even created his own simple machine.

But it was clear from the cheers and applause that they were completely delighted with Alicia’s Rube Goldberg candle snuffer.