Teams were required to design and build a complex machine designed to perform this year's simple everyday task of opening an umbrella.

 

“We are very pleased to finish in second place,” said PSPE Rube Goldberg team leader Rebecca Russell. “We had to overcome a lot of unusual obstacles this year as a team. But we were very competitive and worked hard since the regionals to have a machine that could win the national championship.”

 

Purdue Polytechnic Institute’s Association of Mechanical and Electrical Technicians team received the “Best Design” award for a machine that depicted a soldier’s escape through a rainforest. Judges appreciated the open views to each step that were reminiscent of a Rube Goldberg cartoon. They were also wowed by a trick golf shot that toppled a water dam.

 

Purdue chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers was praised for an innovative step that used vibrations generated by loud, “spooky house music” to topple an ancient building and trigger a sequence.

 

The machines are custom built and pay homage to the whimsy of contraptions created on paper by acclaimed cartoonist Rube Goldberg. The contest was first staged between rival engineering fraternities at Purdue more than 60 years ago. Purdue students launched the annual national intercollegiate contest in 1988. Last year Purdue became the first university to send two teams to the national finals and this year the first to send three teams.

 

(Rube Goldberg and Rube Goldberg Machine Contest are registered trademarks of Rube Goldberg Inc.  http://www.rubegoldberg.com )