Introducing our 2020 Rube Goldberg Machine DIY Challenge!
As part of our 2020 celebration of women in STEM—funded, in part, by the Association for Science & Technology Centers’ and Lyda Hill Philanthropies’ If/Then initiative—we are focusing in early September on the joys of engineering! On August 30 we premiered a video on Facebook, in which members of our Education team discuss engineering, machine basics, and how to bring STEM into your own home with materials that you already have handy.
Now we’re handing over the reigns to you, our visitors…Watch the video presentation here (in case you missed it on 8/30), then read on for details on how to submit your own entry in our 2020 Rube Goldberg Machine DIY Challenge. Three winning teams (divided by age group) will win a family membership to the Discovery Center!
Step 1: Watch the Video
Need help finding what your looking for? The Discovery Center’s contest details begin at 25:00, and our two homemade examples start just after 28:00.
Want some extra inspiration? Check out rubegoldberg.com for information about past challenges and cartoons from Rube Goldberg himself. We also love this video of the 2014 national contest winner, featuring Rube Goldberg’s granddaughter, Jennifer George:
Step 2: Assemble Your Team and Design a Machine
Contest Objective: Design a machine that drops a bar of soap into a team member’s hands (or into a prop’s hands, if you’re a 1-person team and need your hands free to film the machine in action—see Mirka’s example in the video)
Steps Required:
If the oldest member of your team is 10 years or younger: your machine must have at least 5 steps
If your oldest team member is 11-16 years old: your machine must have at least 10 steps
If your oldest team member is 17 years or older: your machine must have at least 15 steps
Tips & Tricks:
Consider steps that add drama: something that takes a long time to tip over, for instance, can build anticipation in your audience
Use what you have on hand; the fun of a Rube Goldberg machine is being creative without spending money on specialized supplies!
Can you incorporate a family pet? What about materials that showcase your interests and hobbies?
An entire series of dominoes, books, etc. falling over in a sequence counts as one step
Because we believe that STEM is accessible and do-able for anyone, we strongly encourage submissions from teams of girls and women!
Step 3: Submit Your Entry
To submit your entry, we need three things:
a video of the entire machine working in sequence, from start to finish (additional still photos are optional, but our judges need to see the machine in action)
a list of your team members and their ages
a numbered list of the steps your machine uses (ex: step 1 is to pull on the faucet handle, step 2 is the cord from the handle up-ending a cup of water, step 3 is the water spilling onto a plastic ramp…)
Email our Director of Education at mzapletal@starhop.com with your video, team member info, and list of machine steps. If your video is too long to send via email, you may post it to a third-party site (e.g. Dropbox, Google Drive, YouTube) and email us a link to its location (but be sure the permissions are set to public, so that we have access!)
Submissions are due by Sunday September 13, 2020.
Our judges will pick one winning team in each age category (10 & younger, 11-16 years, 17 & up). The three winning teams will receive a complimentary family membership to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center!
