4/1/2023 Debra Levey Larson
Written by Debra Levey Larson
When she was in high school, Noor Ansari visited the Engineering Open House at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Upon viewing the Rube Goldberg Society exhibit, she said, “Oh yeah, I want to do that.” Today, she is a senior in aerospace engineering and president of the registered student organization.
Ansari and three other students from the RSO staffed the first shift of the chain-reaction machine’s exhibit at the Engineering Open House, held March 31 and April 1 on UIUC’s campus. All four are from different disciplines at Illinois. Sam Hulbert is an information sciences major, Cyrus LeMoine is in chemical and biomolecular engineering and serves as treasurer of the RSO, and Cedric Sung is majoring in computer science and learning sciences.
The four students, along with others, have been working on the contraption all year. Tomorrow, they will pack it into a rental truck and drive to Indiana to participate in a competition at Purdue University where the Rube Goldberg Machine competition originated in 1949.
Teams choose their own themes and designs and get extra points for the decorations. This year’s space theme starts with a rocket launch. It includes several Buzz Lightyear figures, a Barbie doll dressed like an alien, and loads of cups, ramps, and clamps all set against a starry sky backdrop.
The purpose of a Rube Goldberg machine is to complete a task in the most complex way. The only given for the competition is how the entire sequence ends. This year, a ball must score a goal. Illinois’ spin on it is a small wooden rocket ship that smacks a golf ball into a tiny soccer-like net.
The UIUC Rube Goldberg Society began in 2008. Teams from UIUC won second place three times: in 2009, when the final task was to replace an incandescent light bulb with a more energy-efficient light-emitting design; in 2018, when the task was to pour a bowl of cereal; and in 2019, when the team had to put toothpaste on a toothbrush.
There are 31 energy transfers in this year’s Illinois entry, but LeMoine said there are many more opportunities for something in the contraption to miss its mark. When asked if it has ever had a perfect run, Hulbert said, “Almost.” The team will spend the day running it every half hour for EOH visitors and fine-tuning it for tomorrow’s competition.
Scoring is based on the machine’s reliability, ability to complete tasks, the difficulty of energy transfer, the chosen theme and creativity, and sense of humor. If the machine malfunctions, team members are permitted to manually guide it to the next step but are penalized for each intervention.