Rube Goldberg Regional Competition

Brian's class competed today at the Rube Goldberg Regional Competition. Two weeks ago, they took the top prize at the Local competition and today they competed against seven other 5th grade groups.

The event was held in conjunction with the U of I Engineering Open House and the High School Rube Goldberg Competition, so there were plenty of other Rube machines to view. The High School competition allows electricity, with a larger machine footprint (I'm guessing 6' x 6' x 6') and up to 100 steps. Many of the High School entries were very extensive - motorized cars, fans, ramps, elevators and rockets, just to name a few of the elements.

For example, this team's theme of the North Pole:


Arriving early enabled us to watch many of the HS teams assemble their machines - like the above North Pole Team:


And watch many of the teams' preliminary runs through these complex machines - like this Disney-themed machine which incorporated scenes from Peter Pan (Big Ben), Cinderella (the castle), Beauty and the Beast (the flower), The Lion King, just to name a few.



I can't imagine how many hours were spent designing and building these contraptions!

And here's another look at our 5th grade machine, a birds eye view -


While I wish our team won this Regional competition, sadly, we did not. The judges only award a first place, so the rest of the teams all "came in 2nd place". I do know that our kids presented their machine well and it worked during the judging process. The kids did their very best and we are so proud of them!