Very few engineers would consider Alka-Seltzer tablets and empty beer bottles conventional project materials. But if the designers are participating in a Rube Goldberg competition, then it's all in a day's work.
On Friday, four teams of undergraduate students -- Pyros, L33t, Power 3 and Power -- took up the challenge thrown at them by the First Annual Science and Technology Wing Rube Goldberg Competition.
Goldberg was a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, sculptor and author who became famous in the first years of the 20th century for his vignettes -- portrayals of complex machines that performed the most simple tasks.
It was in the name of this inventiveness that Science and Technology Wing members Magdalena Jonikas and Frederik Heger instituted the competition.
"We were looking for something to make the Engineering School learn about STWing," said Heger, a junior in the Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics Department. "It's something that we can do every year, with little modifications, so that at the end of the day, you have something to show."
Starting at 5 p.m. on Friday, each team had 22 hours to design a machine that would complete the task assigned by the organizers -- sort a handful of U.S. coins by value in no less than 10 steps.
Additional points were given if the machine could separate foreign coins, count the number of coins sorted or display the total value.
While some of the materials were provided, participants had to bring their own tools -- no more than $25 worth of additional materials -- and all the inventiveness they could muster.
But although the assignment was clearly an original one, its conception was far less complicated.
"I have a big pack of coins at home," said Jonikas, a sophomore in bioengineering and STWing parliamentarian. "I was just sorting them and came up with the idea."
While none of the designs managed to accomplish all tasks -- and a few met some technical difficulties along the way -- all were able to complete the first request.
The final projects were judged by Computer and Information Science Professor Norman Badler, Kings Court/English House Dean Krimo Bokreta and Electrical Engineering Professor Jorge Santiago.
The judges chose the winners on the basis of task completion and creativity. The first award went to the Pyros team -- composed by Engineering junior Moon Majumdar, Engineering freshman Dave Jordan and Wharton sophomore Paul Borochin. The second award was taken home by Power -- Engineering freshmen Jennifer Fleischer and Elizabeth Plummer.
According to Badler, the first design "came the closest to working correctly," while the second impressed the judges for its "creativity in material and the riskiness that exemplifies the Rube Goldberg of the task."
Of course, the winning teams were thrilled about their victory, thoroughly enjoying the fun -- and the difficulties -- encountered during the competition.
"It's coming up with an idea, knowing that it's going to have problems, having it completely fail and then just trying to figure out why -- that's the fun of it," said Fleischer, Power team captain. "It was truly an ongoing process... but it was a real team effort."
Others, however, said that things had not been as hard as they had initially thought.
"I had an idea in my head as soon as the project was announced," said Borochin, Pyros team captain. He added that the team had based its design on the mechanism commonly found in vending machines.
Each member of the winning teams was awarded a Microsoft optical mouse while all participants received a STWing T-shirt.
But even though this year's competition is over, organizers are already anxious to start thinking about a second round.
In fact, according to Badler, "this was a great idea -- we must make sure to do it again next year, maybe with more teams."
