Students apply the finishing touches to their "contraption."
Mississippi State engineering students were among those from eight universities entering the competition, named in honor of the cartoonist who drew humorous machines with complex mechanisms to perform simple tasks.
The competition is open to universities with Theta Tau engineering honor societies.
The assignment: build a machine that used at least 20 steps to turn on a radio. Purdue students emerged the winners, with a 39-step entry called "Gluttons for Pun-ishment."
The Mississippi State team, the Turbeaux Dogs, clocked in with 25 steps. Their entry was built around an Olympic theme and covered events that included bob sledding, downhill skiing, the ski jump, figure skating, speed skating, the biathlon, basketball, the 100 meter dash, gymnastics, boating, pole vaulting, and the luge.
"We were the only team that used no mechanized or motorized devices," said team captain James Wink of electrical and computer engineering. He and teammate Ryan Brown, a junior in aerospace engineering, represented Mississippi State at the competition.
"We're also only one of three teams -- including the winning team -- that used flying projectiles in our entry," he said.
To design their entry, the students went back to old Goldberg cartoons and researched his contraptions. "We built our entry using scrap wood, cardboard boxes, hot wheel cars, fishing line, marbles and mouse traps," Wink said.
The Turbeaux Dogs lost points when they had to intervene to help their Rube Goldberg mechanism, but Wink is optimistic that students are on track to enter again—and win. "I'm extremely pleased with our results," he said. "Our concepts were excellent and we think we can edge out other competitors the next time we enter."
The students had sponsorship from local industry Kerr-McGee and from the College of Engineering.
Other entrants included the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, which finished second; Hofstra University, which finished third; Oakland University of Rochester, Minn.; Western Michigan University of Kalamazoo, Mich.; Lawrence Technological University of Southfield, Mich.; the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville; and the University of Texas, Austin.
The 1995 competition was the eighth annual national Rube Goldberg contest. More than 600 people attended the competition, which typically draws national media interest.
This World Wide Web version of MSU Memo was modified and updated by Chris Brown.
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Last modified: Friday, 14-Jun-2002 15:59:04 CDT.
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