February 28, 2005

Purdue students shed light on Rube Goldberg Machine Contest

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Students at Purdue University are going to a lot of trouble to turn on a flashlight.

The 22nd annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest will take place at 11 a.m. March 5, at the Purdue Armory. Sponsored by Theta Tau fraternity, the contest pits against each other teams of students and their machines designed to do simple tasks in the most complicated ways possible.

For this year's contest, machines must remove two batteries from a flashlight, replace them and turn on the flashlight. While 20 steps is the minimum number required to complete the task, most teams use many more.

Journalists can cover the contest. Purdue will provide video and photo pool coverage of the event. Video will be available via satellite uplink after the contest. An ISDN line is available for radio interviews. Video b-roll, photos, audio clips and a news release will be available the afternoon of the contest. If you have questions, contact Matt Holsapple at the Purdue News Service, (765) 494-2073, mholsapple@purdue.edu . Questions about video or requests for video of previous years' contests can be directed to Jesica Webb at (765) 494-2079, jwebb@purdue.edu .

Doors open for the contest at 10:30 a.m. The Purdue News Service will take photographs during the contest, which will be available to the media, and journalists will be able to take photographs of machines and interview students after the contest is completed.

The national competition will be held April 9 at Purdue.

A satellite uplink of contest winners and highlights will be available from 4-4:15 p.m. EST at the following coordinates:

SBS 6/02K (74'W)
U/L: 14049.500 horizontal
D/U: 11749.500 vertical
Allocated bandwidth (MHz): 43.000

Trouble reports with the satellite connection should be reported to (800) 321-3959 or (404) 381-2600.

If you miss the downlink and need a copy of the tape, please contact Webb.

CONTACT: Webb, (765) 494-2079 (office), (765) 426-1071 (cell), (765) 423-0371 (pager), jwebb@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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