• Updated April 30, 2014

The UA Rube Goldberg team’s first ever perfect run at a competition netted third prize April 12 at the Rube Goldberg National competition at the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio.

The team disassembled its machine -- named “Wacky Woodland Wanderings” for its outdoor theme -- and hauled it 2,000 miles in a 30-hour van drive to the competition. The UA team was up against stiff competition from past winners and well-fancied teams such as Purdue University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Pennsylvania State University. Team treasurer Claire Tritz said: “The competition was open to the public and more than 1,000 people were able to see the machine run.”

• National Rube Goldberg website: 2014 Collegiate winners announced. [pictures here]

Original preview story, posted April 10, 2014

UFOs, Hobbits, Batman! UA Rube Cube Competes in Columbus, Ohio

The UA Rube Goldberg Team will be showing off its entry April 12 in this year’s National Rube Goldberg Competition at the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio.

Club members have worked all year to build the 6-by-6-by-6-foot Rube Goldberg machine containing more than 100 steps. The team is confident in its ability to perform well at the competition: Although this is only UA Rube Goldberg’s third year as a club, they achieved second place last year, and have won the Legacy Award, given to the team that best embodies the spirit of Rube Goldberg, both previous years.

“Thousands and thousands of man-hours have gone into building this machine,” said civil engineering junior Patrick Hughes, president of UA Rube Goldberg. “Each of us has put our heart and soul into it, and we can’t wait to show it to the world.”

All the teams taking part in the competition were asked to design a machine that performed a simple task -- zipping up a zipper. The UA team gave their contraption an outdoors theme, with many steps depicting the exploits of woodland critters. In keeping with the lighthearted nature of Rube Goldberg machines, the UA machine contains a UFO, a reproduction of the Shire from the Lord of the Rings novels, and a “batcave” containing Batman himself.

The UA Rube Goldberg team executes a perfect run on its 2014 machine

All members of the club, veteran and neophyte alike, worked on all parts of the machine. “By encouraging members to continuously find new people to collaborate with, we were able to keep new ideas flowing,” explained team member Alexandra Starrett, an aerospace engineering sophomore. “We made sure as well to keep everyone informed on the functionality of each step as we built it, so that any member would be able to retool or fix any broken part.”

Over the course of the first semester, members turned a wooden floor and two blank walls into a complex Rube Goldberg device, building step prototype after step prototype to come up with wacky contraptions that could consistently function. By the end of 2013, the steps were all on the machine. It was far from finished at that point, though, or even fully functional.

Building became even more intense in the second semester, as the team worked to turn that collection of curious mechanics into a real Rube Goldberg machine they could take to Columbus. That meant its aesthetics had to be not only pleasing, but creative and interesting, and all 100-plus steps had to work consistently, even after being disassembled and reassembled.

Did the team end up meeting these goals? “Absolutely,” said Hughes. “It's been a fun year, and it's time to finally show everyone what we've been up to. Ohio, here we come.”