You can have it your way -- only 95 steps required

<p align="justify">Pekin Community High School students are eating up the accolades after creating one of the most complicated ways to build a burger and winning first place in the national Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.

<p align="justify">"We didn't think we'd get this far," said senior Cody Jablonski, 18, of Pekin, a member of the high school's investigative physics class and co-captain of the winning team.

<p align="justify">The Pekin team won first place Saturday at Purdue University during the contest that takes a simple task - in this case, assembling a hamburger with two condiments and two vegetables - and completes it with an extremely complicated machine that sets off a series of chain reactions.

<p align="justify">Their design incorporated a xylophone, a bursting balloon, a Slinky, a stuffed frog flying down a zip line and 95 different chain reactions in order to assemble the burger.

<p align="justify">"The main factor was complexity and reliability," said teacher Priscilla DeLaere. "It's an unbelievable thing."

<p align="justify">Decked out like a '50s diner similar to a Maid-Rite restaurant, the towering structure uses marbles to kick off the chain reactions that eventually lead it to crank out a burger made up of lettuce, onion, salt, pepper and a meat patty on a bun.

<p align="justify">The "Bun Top Diner" team beat out high schools from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin to take home the top spot and trophy in the high school division.

<p align="justify">The team also took first place at the state-level competition in March.

<p align="justify">The smell of onions filled the air in DeLaere's classroom Monday as the students demonstrated how the machine works.

<p align="justify">It's decorated with a retro black-and-white floor, car hop-style roller skates, records and restaurant memorabilia and rock 'n' roll music from the same era plays in the background as the machine does its magic.

<p align="justify">Dressed in paper hats, the students yell, "Order Up!" when the burger is built.

<p align="justify">And while it may seem like a lengthy process, it's still relatively fast food. From start to finish, the machine made out of everything from pencils to a rubber duck can put the burger together in about 45 seconds.

<p align="justify">But it takes about two hours to assemble the 6-foot-tall machine and took even longer to design and build it.

<p align="justify">"It took them about 250 hours to make and put together this project," DeLaere said. "We've pulled all-nighters."

<p align="justify">"It's been very stressful," Jablonski said. "A lot of work's went into it."

<p align="justify">Co-captain Amber May, 18, a senior from Pekin, said the trip to Indiana was worth all the effort.

<p align="justify">"When we placed first, we were really excited," May said. "It took a lot of out-of-school time to build it."

<p align="justify">Kevin Sampier can be reached at (309) 346-5300 or ksampier@pjstar.com.