Wilmington High School wins 14th annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest

ARGONNE, Ill. (Feb. 13, 2009) — A team from Wilmington High School, Wilmington, Ill., today won Argonne National Laboratory's 14th annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest held at the Chicago Children's Museum on Navy Pier. By winning Argonne's contest, Wilmington advances to the National High School Rube Goldberg Machine Championship to be held Saturday, March 28, at Purdue University.

Wilmington defeated 10 other teams by building a complex machine that takes at least 20 steps to replace an incandescent light bulb with a more energy-efficient bulb.

Second place in today's competition was won by Luther North High School, and third place went to a team from St. Charles East High School.

The People's Choice Trophy, awarded by popular vote by people attending the Chicago Children's Museum during the contest, went to Wilmington High School.

Other teams in the contest were:

• Alan B. Shepard H.S., Palos Heights
• Glenbrook North H.S., Northbrook
• Glenbrook South H.S., Glenview
• Illinois Math & Science Academy, Aurora
• Jones College Prep, Chicago
• Niles West H.S., Skokie (two teams)
• Woodstock H.S., Woodstock

In addition to advancing to the national championship, the winning team received a traveling trophy to display until the 2010 contest and a tour of Argonne, which will include the Advanced Photon Source, and lunch with Argonne scientists. The first-place team also will have the opportunity to demonstrate its winning machine at Argonne on the day of its tour. In addition, each team member and the team's faculty advisor received an Argonne National Laboratory Rube Goldberg Machine laptop backpack and an Argonne Rube Goldberg Machine Contest T-shirt.

Second-place team members and their faculty advisor received Argonne National Laboratory Rube Goldberg Machine laptop backpacks and Argonne Rube Goldberg Machine Contest T-shirts.

Third-place team members and their faculty advisor received Argonne National Laboratory Rube Goldberg Machine Contest T-shirts.

Rube Goldberg machine contests are inspired by Reuben Lucius Goldberg, whose cartoons combined simple household items into complex devices to perform trivial tasks. The machines combine the principles of physics and engineering, using common objects such as marbles, mousetraps, stuffed animals, electric mixers, vacuum cleaners, rubber tubes, bicycle parts and anything else that happens to be on hand.

Information about the Argonne Rube Goldberg Machine Contest for High Schools is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.anl.gov/Careers/Education/rube/rubeteams.html

Argonne's Division of Educational Programs and Communications and Public Affairs Division sponsored today's contest in collaboration with Chicago Children's Museum and the National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, held annually at Purdue University. The event is licensed by Rube Goldberg, Inc.

"Rube Goldberg" is a registered trademark and copyright of Rube Goldberg, Inc., which can be reached, at (203) 227-0818, by e-mail at Rube@RubeGoldberg.com or via their Web site at www.RubeGoldberg.com.

Chicago Children's Museum's mission is to create a community where play and learning connect. For more information about Chicago Children's Museum, call (312) 527-1000 or visit www.chichildrensmuseum.org.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance America 's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

Follow Argonne on Twitter at http://twitter.com/argonne.

For more information, please contact Brock Cooper (630/252-5565 or media@anl.gov) at Argonne.