Announcing the winners of our Rube Goldberg machine contest!

We are really excited to recognize the winners of our Rube Goldberg Machine contest, Ehren E. and Rowan McClure! Both entrants rose to the challenge of creating a complex machine to accomplish the simple task of dropping a bar of soap into someone’s hands- in the spirit of Rube Goldberg, both machines creatively used items found at home to add extra steps to a basic task.  

As the car leaps into the bag!

Ehren’s machine, ‘The Grand Simple Soap Machine’, included the following steps:  

(1) A remote-controlled toy car with extra weight (a plumb bob) goes up a ramp (inclined plane). 

(2) Car is driven into a bag tied to a pulley. Weight of the car makes one side go down and the other side rise. 

(3) A bag tied to the second side of the pulley hits a lever with a ball causing the lever to tip and the ball to fall into Q-Ba-Maze cube. 

(4) Ball rolls down Q-Ba-Maze ramp hitting the first domino. 

(5) Domino chain falls hitting bar of soap perched on phone. Soap falls into Ehren’s hands! 

The pieces begin to fall!

Rowan’s gravity-powered machine listed his steps as: 

(1)  Rolling the kart on the track. 

(2)  Which then knocks over the Jenga blocks. 

(3)  Which knocks over the Lego arc then starts the chain reaction.  

(4)  Which knocks over the Jenga blocks. 

(5)  Which knocks over the soap into my hands well. I hope so. 

We loved seeing their creativity and enthusiasm- not to mention the excitement on their faces when the machines worked! Both winners will receive a family membership to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center where they can engage with a variety of machines meant to simplify things.  

If you want to learn more about simple and Rube Goldberg machines, plus see the machines that education staff created to meet the challenge, check out our video presentation!