Students engineer Passover tale

We already knew students at Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute of Technology were smarter than the rest of us. It appears they also might be more creative.

Ahead of the Passover holiday, students from the university’s Mechanical Engineering and Architecture & Town Planning faculties decided to tell the Exodus story in a novel way — by creating a Rube Goldberg machine that reenacts key moments in the tale.

The tale starts with a student pouring wine into a Kiddush cup, which sets the machine in motion when it gets heavy enough. Balls fall through chutes, dominoes knock over a row of matzahs, and a fan is turned on to blow baby Moses in his basket across a tub of water.

Seconds later, a fire is ignited to signify the burning bush. An iPad with the words “Let my people go” is pressed, and a photo of the Sphinx captioned “No!” pops up on the screen.

And so the machine unleashes its wrath. Red food coloring turns water into blood, paper frogs leap out, hail is flung, lights go out as the room is plunged into darkness. The sea is split, and finally, a pyramid is lifted from a table, revealing a seder plate.

For anyone looking to rush through the Haggadah to get to the food, this just might be the way.