Second Place in Rube Goldberg Nationals

Hey! Benjamin Delaporte here!

Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist in the 1930s who drew strange contraptions that took many steps to perform a simple task. In his honor, highschool and college competitions based on his cartoons are held every year at the regional, state, and national levels.

The challenge this year was to replace an incandescent light bulb with a more energy efficient light source. Many teams used a florescent light bulb as the replacement. Solutions ranged from a simple flip of a switch to full fledged robotics – unscrewing of the first light bulb, and screwing the second bulb into the same socket!

My team(a homeschool highschool group named ‘Cornerstone Discovery Group Team B’) took first place at our homeschool highschool, first place at the University of Illinois Engineering Open House regional competition, and finally second place in the national Rube Goldberg competition at Purdue University!

The first place team(from Wisconsin) had 338 points, our team had 337 points, and the third place team(also from Wisconsin) had 335 points. All teams scored perfectly in mechanics. The 4 point range was entirely subjective scoring(thematic appeal), and the judges had very a difficult time deciding. All in all, each of the top three teams had great builds, and amazing themes!

The first place team had a mining theme, with a clever track of upward falling dominoes and a chain belt to change the light bulbs – simultaneously yanking the old bulb out and putting the new bulb in.

The third place team had a Mario theme, with ‘goomba’ cutouts that acted as dominoes after Mario bopped the first one on the head.

My team had a Dr. Seuss theme, with Truffula tree dominoes and two wacky hands to swap the light bulbs. Our mechanics were solid due to the steady ingenuity of our mechanical department. Although hot glue, duct tape, and sheet metal are often tempting as quick fixes to problems, our mechanical department managed to avoid all but a few pieces of sheet metal in the final build, and that only to make the light bulb socket. We’ve learned from previous years that those building materials are unreliable. The mechanical department’s experience proved to be correct, as the most finicky step was the light bulb socket, because of the sheet metal inside of it.

Our theme was beautiful due to the brilliance of our art department. The art department did such a great job that at the Engineering Open House Illinois Regional competition we were given the ‘People’s Choice Award’ trophy in addition to the 1st place trophy! (The People’s Choice Award is given to the team with the popular vote from onlookers. )

My team did so well because we had members with very specific and strong skill sets. Each member had very strong view points, too, but we managed to work together through delegation and departmentalization.  Between all 7 team members, we put nearly 1000 hours into the project.

It has been a great experience!

I’d like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Mercier for sponsoring our team and feeding us during those long hours. I’d also like to thank friends and family who supported our team at the Engineering Open House Regional competition and at the Purdue University National competition! You guys were great! We really appreciate your support!

And good job ‘Cornerstone Discovery Group Team B’! It’s been a pleasure working with all of you.

(I’m planning on adding pictures of my team’s state and national trophies here a bit later)

Check out the Quad blog article about the college level team from the University of Illinois. They took second in the national college level competition! Great job guys!