Although its prizes may seem attractive, Elyse Rosenstein, physics teacher at Malverne High School and advisor to student entrants, says the Rube Goldberg Competition is not for everyone.
"This is basically an engineering contest. You have to be mechanically inclined, creative, and you must enjoy working hard enough to see a project through."
A group of students from Malverne High School used their imaginations to design and construct their own machines for the 14th Annual competition, recently held at Polytechnic University's Farmingdale campus. Competitors from all over Long Island were given the task of designing and building a machine that would perform a simple function in a complex way.
The contest awards a $20,000 scholarship to each first place participant from group and individual categories.
Four teams of two from Malverne High School participated in the competition. Although none of the teams finished in first, three of the four teams finished in the top 15.
Junior Rajat Gupta and senior Neutne Williamson designed a machine that would drop an action figure into a container of water.
"It took a few days to find a topic. We watched videos of previous competitions, and thought of how carnival clowns end up in a pail of water," said Gupta.
That end result begins with a golf ball that hits a piece of wood, which hits a row of dominos that triggers a weight which raises an elevator that releases a ball that rolls down a ramp...
You get the idea. Somewhere along the line there's a cup of sugar, a motor, conveyer belt, a toy car and a marble involved, but it just gets too complicated to try to explain.
"We were up until 4 a.m. the night before testing it," Gupta said. Their efforts proved fruitful, for their machine completed an entire run, ranked seventh in the competition, and scored an extra point for returning the golf ball to its starting position.
Freshmen Mark Chang and Jared Mann designed a machine to complete a game of chess at checkmate. For their work, the team received a tenth place ranking.
Juniors Marc Blackman and Elizabeth Schuster designed a ski town that would light up as their final golf ball was transported out of the machine. They finished in 13 place.
Senior Nora Joseph and her brother, freshman Ralph Joseph, who ranked 22nd, designed and built a machine that would light up a building.
"When students first enter the competition, they have no idea what they're getting themselves into," said Rosenstein. "Then they ask themselves, why am I even doing this? But then they're thrilled with the results, and they want to do it again."
Student projects were judged on the number of different types of energy featured, such as gravity, kinetics, electrical or magnetic; the number of energy exchanges, timing of the machine, creativity and how well and often (of three trials) the machine performed. All projects must begin and end with a golf ball, at the same height, and be large enough to achieve an operating time of about one minute. Funnels, sand and sugar are often used to keep projects from running too quickly.
Rosenstein recalled how, before she came to Malverne, she had a two female students working on a Goldberg project.
"One girl's father came in and couldn't believe how his daughter, whom he believed to be only interested in hair and make up, was handling a glue gun and constructive materials," she said. "This girl went on to major in bioengineering at Penn State University. You never know."
Because it was the first time these students entered the Goldberg Competition, they were commended for their relatively high ranking despite tough competition.
