Each year, on the last school day before the Thanksgiving recess at Salisbury High School, physics instructor Paul Koba offers extra course credit to any of his students who build simple machines modeled on siege machine weapons used by armies in Medieval Europe and the United Kingdom. The machines are employed to see how far the competitors can toss a long-frozen turkey down an athletic field behind the school.

This year’s competition was abbreviated by exceptionally chilly weather preceding the Thanksgiving holiday.

“It’s a practical and fun activity to apply principles taught in a module of our physics class,” Koba said.

Koba keeps the playing field level for competitors year to year by using the same frozen turkey he won in a bowling competition back in the 1990s.

The annual competition, in its 23rd year, enables learning outside the traditional classroom environment, Koba said and recognizes achievement by other than those competitors in the school’s sporting endeavors.