In Week 2 of AVI’s Rube Goldberg challenge, students moved beyond making a chain reaction work. Now their machines had a job to do, pushing students to test ideas, study cause and effect, and change their designs when something did not work as planned.

Afterschool tends to be measured in two ways: by the hours it covers and by how much homework gets done. Both matter to families for real reasons. Neither one tells you much about the quality of the learning happening inside those hours.