February 22, 2016  

AMET team takes first place in weekend Rube Goldberg contest

Goldberg amet

Purdue's Association of Mechanical and Electrical Technologists team works its contraption during the annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest regional Saturday in the Purdue Armory. The team took first place in the collegiate competition and will advance to the national event in April in Columbus, Ohio. (Purdue University photo/Mark Simon)
Download Photo

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. —Members of Purdue's Association of Mechanical and Electrical Technologists won the collegiate division of the annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest Saturday on campus.

Members of the team created a complex machine to complete this year's simple task: Open an umbrella. AMET finished second nationally last year.

The 2015 national competition winners, Purdue Society of Professional Engineers, placed second on Saturday.

Originally started more than 60 years ago, the contest is named for Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg whose drawings satirized machines and gadgets that he saw as excessive. Each year, complex multistep machinery is created using household items to accomplish trivial tasks.

The competition was hosted by the Purdue Engineering Student Council at the Purdue Armory.

Of the seven collegiate teams participating in the collegiate competition, two others were also from Purdue: American Society of Mechanical Engineers Rube Goldberg Team and the Society of Mexican American Engineers & Scientists.

Jana Mudrock, a coordinator for the contest, said all teams from the collegiate level can advance to the national competition. It is scheduled for April 9 in Columbus, Ohio.

Four Division II (high school) teams also competed on Saturday. The winner, Kouts High School, moves on to the national competition on April 23 in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.

The contest began in 1949 as a competition on Purdue's campus between two engineering fraternities. It died after six years, but was re-established in the early 1980s, culminating with the creation of a national Rube Goldberg Machine Contest in 1988. 

Writer: Brian L. Huchel, 765-494-2084, bhuchel@purdue.edu 

Source: Jana Mudrock, 765-496-2660, jmudrock@purdue.edu 

Purdue University, 610 Purdue Mall, West Lafayette, IN 47907, (765) 494-4600

© 2015-22 Purdue University | An equal access/equal opportunity university | Copyright Complaints | Maintained by Office of Strategic Communications

Trouble with this page? Disability-related accessibility issue? Please contact News Service at purduenews@purdue.edu.