ASME team members (clockwise, starting from left): Tyler Luce, Zoheb Noorani, Todd Bilderback, TJ Weaver, Travis Hampton, Brandon Boyle, Austin Taliaferro, Megan Connoly, Charles Manion, Chi-Che Ma and John Helfand
On February 17th, the Psi Beta Chapter of Theta Tau hosted the 2010 Rube Goldberg Machine Contest in the Taylor Room of the ETC building. A large crowd was in attendance to see three teams compete for an opportunity to participate in the national competition on March 27th, 2010.
Rube Goldberg Machines
A Rube Goldberg machine is an apparatus which performs a simple task in an overly-complex way. Such machines are named for American engineer and cartoonist Rube Goldberg in honor of his cartoon series which depicted such machines. He stated that his machines were “a symbol of man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to achieve minimal results.”
This year's Rube Goldberg task is to "dispense an appropriate amound of hand sanitizer onto a hand."
The Contest
This year was the 14th year the Cockrell School of Engineering participated in the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. The national competition is held yearly at Purdue. This year's local winner will go on to represent The University of Texas at Austin at Purdue.
Each team was required to create a machine which would accomplish a given task in under two minutes and twenty steps or more. The task for this year's competition is to “dispense an appropriate amount of hand sanitizer onto a hand.”
The Judges
The department thanks the judges for volunteering their time to the project. The judges were Kelly McQuery, Academic Advisor in Chemical Engineering, Ben Hodges, Associate Professor from Civil Engineering, Billy Wood, Senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering, and Lockheed Martin Campus Relations Manager, Art McAnarney.
The Contestants
There were three teams competing this year: Theta Tau, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).
Society of Women Engineer's entry into the 2010 Rube Goldberg competition. Pictured here are (clockwise, starting at left) Samantha Moss, Lauren Collins, Marcus Minchew, Lauren Conrad and Joanna Fung.
Society of Women Engineers
SWE started off the event with their "Swine Flue"-themed machine. The theme was inspired by team captain Lauren Collin's own bout with the H1N1 virus. The team also included Marcus Minchew, Lauren Conrad, Joanna Fung and Samantha Moss. Their machine ran one minute 13 seconds on the first run, and 32 seconds on the second try.
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
The next team was ASME, who competed with their "Wild West"-themed contraption. ASME's team captain was Mechanical Engineering senior Tyler Luce, who won last year's regional competition as an independent contestant. The largest of the three, their machine completed the task in 46 steps in one minute and 45 seconds on the first run, and one minute and 30 seconds on the second.
The team included Tyler Luce, Zoheb Noorani, Todd Bilderback, TJ Weaver, Travis Hampton, Brandon Boyle, Austin Taliaferro, Megan Connoly, Chi-Che Ma and John Helfand with further help from Charles Manion.
Theta Tau's entry into the 2010 Rube Goldberg competition
Theta Tau
The final team to compete was Theta Tau. Their device, comprised primarily of marbles running down chutes, was the first to complete successfully without any intervention. The Theta Tau team consisted of Tyler Lawson, Chris Hunt, and Kevin Cross. Their machine completed the task in twenty seconds on the first run, and 23 on the second.
Final Results
The ASME team placed first, for which they received $500, and the opportunity to compete in the national competition. Second place, with $200, was awarded to Theta Tau, while SWE came in third, for which they received $100.
Tyler Luce explains and then runs the ASME Rube Goldberg Machine. View larger format on You Tube. Read the transcript.
Step List
ASME's machine completed the task in 46 steps, which were as follows:
- Gun emits IR light
- Arduino board reads IR signal
- Microcontroller trips relay
- Relay turns on vibrating cow table
- Table vibrates causing stampede
- Cows stampede down ramp
- Stampede springs mouse trap
- Mouse trap pulls support from water tower
- Water tower falls over hitting switch
- Switch turns on the pump
- Water flows down chute
- Water falls into lake causing the water level to rise
- Water raises ping pong balls
- Ping pong balls lift the gate holding logging cart
- Logging cart rolls down and hits ramp support
- Marble rolls down shaft into maze
- Marble rolls through the maze
- Marble falls into elevator
- Elevator drops activating the crane
- Crane lifts the logs causing train to start
The train on ASME's Rube machine goes around the track.
- Train goes around track to station hitting a gate
- Gate hits a marble
- Marble falls down tube flipping a switch
- Switch turns on the pump for the oil derrick
- Oil chute fills raising ping pong through maze
- Ping pong ball hits lever with force of rising water causing it to rise
- Lever tilts ramp causing another marble to fall
- Marble travels down ramps and tube to hit mouse trap
- Mouse trap pulls supports from gallows
- Hanging convicts fall to their death pulling down nooses
- Nooses pull out brakes from stagecoach
- Stagecoach goes down ramp knocking down support of arrow
- Arrow hits Indian
- Other end of arrow pulls wire
- Wire pulls support from underneath hot air balloon
- Hot air balloon falls pulling on rope
- Rope travels through pulleys unraveling the wagon wheel
- Rope pulls support out from under bird
- Bird flies knocking down cactus
- Cacti go down as dominoes
- Last cactus hits a switch turning on solenoid
- Solenoid turns on air stream from compressor
ASME's Rube machine dispenses hand sanitizer with an Archimedes screw.
- Air turns the windmill
- Windmill turns Archimedes screw
- Rotational motion forces hand sanitizer up
- Hand sanitizer dispenses into hand
