Wilmington High School wins 13th annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest
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ARGONNE, Ill. (Feb. 22, 2008) — A team from Wilmington High School today won
Argonne National Laboratory's 13th annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest
held at Chicago Children's Museum on Navy Pier.
Argonne's educational programs are funded by the U.S. Department
of Energy's Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Students as
part of its mission to inspire and encourage the next generation of scientists,
engineers and other technology professionals. |
The team defeated five other teams by building a complex machine that took
at least 20 steps to assemble a hamburger consisting of no less than one precooked
meat patty, two vegetables and two condiments, sandwiched between two bun halves.
Second place in today's competition was won by Alan B. Shephard High School, Palos Heights, and third place went to team #1 from Maine Township South,
Park Ridge.
The People's Choice Award, chosen by popular vote by people attending the
Chicago Children's Museum during the contest, went to Wilmington High School. The team received a trophy.
Other teams in the contest were:
- Gardner South Wilmington H.S., Wilmington
- Maine Township South, Park Ridge team #2
- Illinois Math & Science Academy, Aurora
The winning team received a traveling trophy to display until the 2009
contest and a tour of Argonne, which will include the Advanced Photon Source,
and lunch with Argonne scientists. The first-place team also will have the
opportunity to demonstrate its winning machine at Argonne National Laboratory
on the day of its tour. In addition, each team member and the team's faculty
advisor received an Argonne National Laboratory Rube Goldberg Machine laptop
backpack and an Argonne Rube Goldberg Machine Contest T-shirt.
Second-place team members and their faculty advisor received Argonne
National Laboratory Rube Goldberg Machine laptop backpacks and Argonne Rube
Goldberg Machine Contest T-shirts.
Third-place team members and their faculty advisor received Argonne
National Laboratory Rube Goldberg Machine Contest T-shirts.
These top three teams will have the opportunity to compete in the 2008 Illinois
State Championship Rube Goldberg Machine Contest to be held Saturday, March
22, at the Chicago Children's Museum. They will compete against the top three
teams from the Friday, March 7, high school Rube Goldberg Machine Contest at
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign's Engineering Open House. The
top two teams in the Illinois State Championship will advance to the National
Championship Saturday, April 5, at Purdue University.
Rube Goldberg machine contests are inspired by Reuben Lucius Goldberg, whose
cartoons combined simple household items into complex devices to perform trivial
tasks. The machines combine the principles of physics and engineering, using
common objects such as marbles, mousetraps, stuffed animals, electric mixers,
vacuum cleaners, rubber tubes, bicycle parts and anything else that happens
to be on hand.
Information about the Argonne Rube Goldberg Machine Contest for High Schools
is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.anl.gov/Careers/Education/rube/rubeteams.html
Argonne's Division of Educational Programs and Communications and Public Affairs
Division sponsor the March event in collaboration with Chicago Children's Museum
and the National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, held annually at Purdue University. The event is licensed by Rube Goldberg, Inc.
"Rube Goldberg" is a registered trademark and copyright of Rube
Goldberg, Inc., which can be reached, at (203) 227-0818, by e-mail at Rube@RubeGoldberg.com
or via their Web site at www.RubeGoldberg.com.
Chicago Children's Museum's mission is to create a community where play and
learning connect. For more information about Chicago Children's Museum, call
(312) 527-1000 or visit www.chichildrensmuseum.org.
Argonne National Laboratory brings the world's brightest scientists and engineers
together to find exciting and creative new solutions to pressing national problems
in science and technology. The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne
conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every
scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from
hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies
to help them solve their specific problems, advance America 's scientific leadership
and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees from more than 60
nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago
Argonne, LLC for the U.S.
Department of Energy's Office
of Science.
For more information, please contact Brock Cooper (630/252-5565
or bcooper@anl.gov) at Argonne.
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