College Teams Compete for Glory With Gadgets

April 5, 2007 — -- How many engineers does it take to pour a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice? As it turns out, you need three engineers, a slinky, a hobby horse and about 3,000 hours of prep time.

If this sounds like an engineer joke, it's not. Ask any one of the competitors in last Saturday's 19th Annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest held at Purdue University, and they'll tell you that this is really quite serious.

At the RGMC, inefficiency and absurd complexity are not just the norm, they are celebrated. Entrants in this year's competition were charged with peeling an orange, juicing it and pouring at least one teaspoon of juice into a cup using a minimum of 20 steps.

The contraptions are limited in size to 5 feet by 6 feet by 6 feet, and can't contain any live animals, open flames or explosives. The teams must then complete two successful runs, making juice in this year's case, and are judged on a point system for the creative use of materials, theme, team chemistry and flow of the machine.

The 2007 RGMC's winning invention, created by Ferris State University's toy-loving trio, incorporated an eye-popping 345 steps from peel to pour -- breaking the Purdue Society of Professional Engineer's previous record, as well as the Guinness Book of Records' 125 steps.

"It's really fun," said Ferris State senior James Travis III. "It has a lot of steps, it's complex. … Our goal for this year was to beat the record with 300 steps and, by the time we were done, we actually had 345."

But that extensive process could have proved disastrous, according to one competitor. "With added steps come added risk," said Kyle Keppner, a freshman from Purdue University. "One more step is one more chance of failure."

So how did Ferris State manage to oust four-time winner Purdue? Well, it all came down to child's play.

Made up entirely of American-made toys, the Bulldog's contraption all started with the ring of bell.

The bell then triggered a line of cars that traveled down a chute and up a Jacob's ladder, causing dominoes to fall and start the train, which choo-chooed down a set of tracks causing a hobby horse to drop. After the horse dropped, a mixture of Diet Coke and Mentos mints exploded and hit a target, thus setting the final squeeze and pour in motion.