Rube Goldberg Machine Contest

The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest is a contest in which college or high school students build devices to complete a simple task in a minimum of twenty steps in the style of American cartoonist Rube Goldberg. Local contests are held throughout the United States, and local winners are eligible to compete in the national contest.

Teams of students arrive at the competition with a tabletop Rube Goldberg machine designed to accomplish the task of the year. The machine must use at least twenty steps and also complete the task within two minutes. While previous entries have used over 200 steps, the 2015 contest required that no more than 75 steps be used. Students typically choose a theme, often relating to popular films or historical periods.

Part of the score is based on the machine's ability to finish the task in two out of three attempts. The remaining portion of the score comes from the judges' general impressions of the team's theme, teamwork, and "Goldberg spirit". If the machine malfunctions, team members are permitted to manually guide it to the next step; a penalty is assessed for each intervention.

The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest originated at Purdue University in 1949 as a competition between Theta Tau and Triangle fraternities, and it was held annually until 1956. Phi Chapter of Theta Tau revived the contest in 1983 as a competition open to all Purdue students. In 1989, the Theta Tau Rube Machine Contest became a national competition held at Purdue University in March each year with participation by winning entries from local competitions sponsored by Theta Tau Chapters across the nation. In addition to the collegiate competition, a high school contest began in 1996. In 2013, the national collegiate contest moved from the Purdue campus to COSI Columbus in Ohio. The national contest has gained much coverage by the press and television media. Past winners of the contest have made appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel Live!. The Machine Contest is the subject of the feature documentary Mousetrap to Mars.

Past tasks include:

The 1989 national contest had the task of sharpening a pencil in more than 25 steps. The first national contest winners were from the School of Technology named Watch-N-Ponder, led by Jeff Cottingham. Their machine had as a theme a Distressed Purdue Student with a Broken Pencil about to take a test. Their machine completed the task in 37 steps which featured a large Panic Button- that started the machine, a Purdue Student, Purdue Pete dominos, Purdue Pete crushing the IU symbol, color changing water, a small truck loading dock, a plotter writing out "RUBE GOLDBERG" with a pencil, and finally Purdue Pete chopping down a tree which went into a Saw Mill to make a pencil for the Purdue Student. It was described by the Judges as having music, drama, and timely sound effects that made the audience cheer. The team made a video special for Newtons Apple show that year as well as a commercial for the United Way campaign. Kathleen Sullivan and Harry Smith interviewed Jeff Cottingham on Good Morning America, promoting Purdue, Theta Tau, the School of Technology, and the hard work by all the team members. University of Wisconsin and the University of Detroit were the two other competitors that year and finished second and third respectively.

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