Complex Machines, Simple Goal

(continued)

Ultimately, first place and a trip to the Argonne contest went to a team dubbed “The Rockin' Rubes” whose machine sported both function and form. The musically themed machine completed the task and featured an abundance of decorations including vinyl records, CDs, musical notes and, of course, standard Rube issue such as pop bottles, plastic cups and rubber bands.

But no matter how well the machines perform in the basement or at school, the real test comes the day of the contest, which is held at the Chicago Children's Museum. The teams begin to roll in before 8:30 a.m., dragging toolboxes, parts and carts with pieces of their creations. It's an early start for the students, many of whom have worked into the wee hours of the morning and some of whom had to leave home at the crack of dawn for the drive to Chicago from far flung suburbs.

Students quickly get to work assembling their machines. The contest can accommodate up to 12 teams. This year there were nine. As the contraptions come together and the students test them out, variations of the same sounds can be heard coming from each group — groans, sighs and exclamations: “This is not working! Why is this not working?”

Soon, it's 10:30 a.m. and time for the judging to begin. There are five judges. The machines must complete a full cycle in no more than nine minutes. A full cycle includes a first run to completion of the task, a complete reset, and second run to completion of the task. Teams lose points if someone must touch the machine to help it complete the run.

Besides judging on the technicalities of whether the machine runs without human intervention and does so in at least 20 steps, judges also look for innovative design in a Rube Goldberg Machine, according to Argonne's Deon Ettinger, who has served as lead judge for several years.

“ I am impressed when a machine that appears to have a low probability of success functions effectively every time. To design and build a machine that does so is very difficult,” said Ettinger. “Also, I want to see something more than a top-down gravity-driven machine. A top-down machine simply relies on falling objects, rolling down ramps or in free fall, to drive the machine. The start button will be at the top and, in the classic case, the sequential steps will occur farther and farther down until the last step is at the bottom — rather boring. Another factor that I weigh when judging a machine is the degree of teamwork evident in the design, construction and operation.”

In the opinion of most students, the key to winning is consistency. To achieve it, the machines need to be tested repeatedly to work out the bugs, because once the contest starts, there are only two chances to make it run correctly. Wilmington High School freshman Nick Cox said his team's machine probably ran correctly eight times out of 10. “We got it to work the two that count,” he added with a smile.

It takes the judges about two hours to review all the machines. After a short deliberation, the winners are announced. For the 2005 contest, first place went to Morgan Park Academy. They won the traveling Rube Goldberg trophy, as well as the opportunity to tour Argonne, have lunch with Argonne scientists and demonstrate their machine at the lab. Wilmington High School and Minooka Community High School tied for second place. All three teams advanced to the Illinois State Championship, held this year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“ The winning machine this year worked flawlessly,” said Ettinger. “In fact, it was just a bit shy of being too well engineered. The best Rube Goldberg machines surprise the judges when they function successfully. Thus, this year's winner could have been defeated by a machine that was equally reliable, but which looked dubious.”

After the winners are announced, weeks and months of hard work are dismantled quickly as the teams pack up to go home. When the last board is boxed and the last PVC pipe packed, the students take home more than just a pile of parts and junk. They take the seeds of their future.

“ This is probably one of the best things I've done in high school,” said Wilmington senior Carrie Francis, who plans to study biomedical engineering in college.

And moments after winning this year's contest, Kevin Larson, a senior on the Morgan Park Academy team reflected, “I thought I wanted to be an engineer. This helped seal the deal.”