Inefficient winners
I posted at the end of March about the US Rube Goldberg competition. Entrants were asked to make a machine that squeezes an orange into a cup in the most roundabout manner possible. The results came in a while ago, but I was waiting until some video became available before posting again. Here’s a link to a package put together by Purdue University. It shows some of the machines in action.
Ferris State University in Michigan ultimately won with a contraption built from second hand toys - they’ve also posted some videos of their machine on this page. It squeezed the orange in 345 steps - beating the record for a Rube Goldberg machine of 125 steps, set in the 2006 contest. The Purdue team came second with 155 steps, while Texas A&M University came third with 39. Congratulations to all involved.
Tom Simonite, online technology reporter.
Original post by http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2007/04/inefficient-winners.html