Purdue News
Purdue News
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The winning team, called Team Gluestick, based its machine on America, and included baseball, motherhood, the space shuttle, a demonstration of how Purdue powers America, and scenes from the Revolutionary and Civil wars. The four team members, representing the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, will vie for the national title against teams from across the country in the National Rube Goldberg Contest April 5 at Purdue.
The four students built a machine that used more than 40 steps to load a Bruce Sprinsteen CD into a CD player, playing the song "Born in the U.S.A." The machine incorporated a baseball mitt, a doll representing "mother," a red, white and blue electric fan, a toy tractor and farm animals, and Bigfoot, the legendary ape-man that supposedly roams America's forests in the Pacific Northwest.
The contest honors the late cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who specialized in drawing whimsical, complicated machines to perform the simplest of tasks. The machines were judged based on completion of the task, creativity, number of steps and Rube Goldberg spirit.
Other contraptions featured rubber ducks, a ball-peen hammer, clothes dryer ducts, pool balls, mouse traps and an electric drill. Themes included movies, a carnival, a party and fairy tales.
Members of the winning team are David Hartmann, Milwaukee , a junior studying mechanical engineering and German; Alex Kruggel, Lafayette , a senior in construction engineering and management; Christopher O'Keefe, Jefferson, Mass. , a graduate student in mechanical engineering; and Bryan Whitson, West Lafayette , a senior in mechanical engineering.
The winners spent about one month and $250 putting their machine together, Whitson said. "About $90 in materials, and $150 in decorations," he said.
Here's the team's award-winning method of loading and playing a CD:
The machine starts when a team member drops a coin into a juke box, which sets off a mouse trap, which pulls a pin, causing a baseball to fall out of a mitt. The ball lands in a cup, which falls and closes a circuit, turning on an electric fan underneath the Statue of Liberty. The black-and-gold fan, symbolizing Purdue, powers a red, white and blue fan, symbolizing America. A piston extends, pushing a CD down a ramp and into a CD player. The piston trips a wire, turning on a motor, which turns a pulley that sends a space shuttle across the machine.
The shuttle breaks two wires, causing a weight to drop and turn over a box, which drops a ball of clay into a "melting pot," which fires a Civil War cannon across the ground, decorated like farmland. The cannonfire causes George Washington to swing down and smash into a British flag, pulling a pin that causes a ramp to fall and a race car to hit a mouse trap. The trap trips a string, causing a tractor to drop on a lever, which causes the Mayflower to hit a sasquatch, also known as Bigfoot. A ball drops, turning on a motor, which pushes a pin that hits play on the CD player.
Whitson said one of the hardest engineering aspects of the machine was getting the CD to land in the CD player properly and consistently. "The funniest step was having George Washington pound the British," he said. The machine took about a minute and a half to run through its paces.
Second place went to a team representing the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. The 24-step machine, depicting a party, was called "Fun in a Fury." It included a Barbie doll popping from a cake, a spinning disco ball made from tin foil, a Twister game, and a spilling bottle of soda.
Third place went to a team from Cary Quadrangle, an all men's residence hall. The theme of the machine was fairy tales and myths, and it included a toilet as the "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," Jack and his beanstalk, the tortoise and the hare, and Atlas holding the world, which was actually a softball painted blue and green.
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Other teams participating represented the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, with a machine based on a carnival, and a combined team from the Society of Women Engineers and the Society of Physics Students, whose machine featured scenes from several movies, such as "Gone With the Wind," "King Kong," "Jaws" and "Towering Inferno."
The winning team received $300, the traveling Rube Goldberg trophy and a full-size refrigerator from contest sponsor General Electric. The second-place team received $200, a trophy and a microwave oven from GE. The third-place team won $100, a trophy and a dorm-size refrigerator. The People's Choice winner received a trophy.
aas/rubel.result/9702f14
Source: Dan Colpi, contest chairman, (765) 743-8135; e-mail, colpi@en.ecn.purdue.edu
Writer: Amanda Siegfried, (765) 494-4709; e-mail, amanda_siegfried@purdue.edu
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu
Photo Captions
LEANING HELPS -- Alex Kruggel of Lafayette, right, applies a little body English to
help his team's contraption run properly in Saturday's (2/8) Rube Goldberg Machine
Contest at Purdue University. Kruggel's four-man team, including Christopher O'Keefe,
Jefferson, Mass., left, won the contest with a machine based on the history and ideals
of America. Their device took 43 steps to load a CD into a CD player and play the
song "Born in the U.S.A." The winners represented the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers and competed against five other Purdue teams. They will represent the university
in the National Rube Goldberg Contest April 5, also at Purdue. (Photo by Dave Umberger,
Purdue News Service.)
Color photo, electronic transmission, and Web and ftp download available. Photo ID: rube97.puwinner
Download here
CROWD PLEASER -- A team of Purdue University students reacts to a run of its machine
in the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest at Purdue on Saturday (2/8). The machine from
Theta Tau, a professional engineering fraternity, recreated scenes from the "Star
Wars" movies, and took 28 steps to load a CD into a CD player to play the "Star Wars" theme.
The machine did not place in the contest, but was the audience's favorite, taking
home the People's Choice Award. Pictured, from left, are: Andrew Bates, Carmel; Mike
O'Quin, Danville; Jeff Laz, Wading River, N.Y.; Greg Goodrich, Rochester, N.H.; Aaron
Hexamer, Anderson; and Tom Bruns, Cincinnati. A four-man team from the American Society
of Mechanical Engineers won the contest with a machine depicting the history and
ideals of America. (Photo by Dave Umberger, Purdue News Service.)
Color photo, electronic transmission, and Web and ftp download available. Photo ID: rube97.pureax
Download here
