February 16, 2017

Purdue student teams square off for 2017 Rube Goldberg contest

Goldberg amet Purdue’s Association of Mechanical and Electronic Technologists team sets up its Rube Goldberg machine in Purdue University Armory during the 2016 competition. Eleven teams will square off in the contest on Saturday (Feb. 18). (Purdue University photo/Mark Simons) Download image

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — High school and university students continue a Purdue University tradition Saturday (Feb. 18) with the annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.

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 multi-step machinery is created using household items to accomplish trivial tasks.

Purdue competition coordinator Fernando Escribens of the Purdue Engineering Student Council said this year’s competition challenges participants to apply a Band-Aid in the most “creative, overly-complicated way imaginable.” Teams from both high schools and universities will be represented at the competition. 

Machine demonstrations are scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m. at the Purdue Armory, 813 Third St. The armory opens to the public at 10:30 a.m. 

This year’s competition features five Division II (high school) and five Division III (university) teams. Three of the Division III teams are from Purdue: the Association of Mechanical and Electrical Technologists, Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

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: Fernando Escribens, 765-496-2660, fescribe@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.