Wilmington H.S. wins Illinois State Rube Goldberg machine championship

ARGONNE, Ill. (April 21, 2007) — A team of students from Wilmington High School, Wilmington, today won the 9th annual Illinois Rube Goldberg Machine Championship, sponsored jointly by the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Wilmington team defeated four other Illinois high schools in the competition, held at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, by building a complex machine to take a whole orange, juice it and pour the juice from a pitcher into a cup. The machine had to complete its task in 10 or more steps.

Second place in today's competition was won by Maine South High School, Park Ridge, and third place went to a second team from Maine South.

The statewide competition also included teams from Stark County High School, Toulon, and Pekin High School, Pekin.

The winning team receives the Illinois championship trophy, and $600 to support the school's science program. The second-place team receives a presentation certificate and a $450 to support the school's science program. The third-place team receives a presentation certificate and a $350 donation to the school's science program. The remaining teams receive $250 donations to their schools' science programs.

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.

Argonne's Division of Educational Programs and Communications and Public Affairs Division sponsor the championship event in collaboration with the School of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The event is licensed by Rube Goldberg, Inc.

"Rube Goldberg" is a registered trademark of Rube Goldberg, Inc., which can be reached by fax at (212) 371-3761, by e-mail at license@rubegoldberg.com or information@rubegoldberg.com, or on the World Wide Web at www.rgmc.com.

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 Steve McGregor (630/252-5580 or media@anl.gov) at Argonne.