The High School Design Contest is held annually involving students from all over Illinois. The competition gives students an opportunity to apply concepts learned in the classroom along with their creativity towards constructing a Rube Goldberg Machine. Rube Goldberg Machines, made famous in cartoons by Rueben Lucius Goldberg, use an elaborate process along with ordinary (and some not so ordinary) materials to accomplish a simple task, such as placing a golf ball on a tee or lighting a match.
What to Expect
Be prepared to see engineering and physics principles, such as energy transfer, hard at work in every way conceivable! Contests such as this help students to better understand what is taught in the classroom because they are making actual (and fun) applications of these principles. We also guarantee you'll walk out of the contest learning of a new and interesting use for an everyday item. We encouraged the teams to dig through their attics and clean out their junk drawers to find the weirdest things imaginable to use on their machines. These "not-so ordinary" items are in the true spirit of Rube Goldberg. This is one of those few times in life where wackier is better! In all, you should be thoroughly entertained by the creativity of our teams in their quest to make life a little more complicated.The 2008 Contest Specifics
- The 2008 Rube Goldberg task: to "assemble a hamburger consisting of no less than: one precooked meat patty, two vegetables and two condiments, sandwiched between two bun halves."
- 8 participants are allowed per team; 2 teams are allowed per high school
- The contest will be held March 7th, 2008 in the Illini Union Rooms A, B, & C
- Visit http://www.rubegoldberg.com for the official machine rules and specifications
- Rube Goldberg Machine Contest at Argonne National Laboratory
Registration
This year, participation will be limited to 30 teams. Therefore, register your team as soon as information becomes available. To register for this event, click on the Register button at the top of the page. This will take you to our registration page where you can sign up for the competition. Red fields are required, but changes to registration information may be made later using your created login. The registration deadline is February 15th. We look forward to seeing you at the competition.
If you have any questions or comments about HSDC, please contact Eric at
eoh-hsdc@ec.uiuc.edu.
