National Rube Goldberg Competition

This past weekend, I was able to go to Purdue University and participate in the National Rube Goldberg Competition. (For those of you who may not know what I am talking about, go here or watch this.)

The task to complete this year was to change an incandescent light bulb to a more efficient one. I helped the American Society of Mechanical Engineers out with their Super Mario Brothers Themed machine this year. We competed at the Regional Competition held here on campus against 4 other groups who has equally qualified machines. However, we ended up winning and secured a trip to Purdue to represent Penn State.

Before getting to nationals, I personally had no idea what to expect. I had heard that previous winners had over 100 steps. Our machine only had about 50 steps, which made me nervous. So after making the 10-11 hour drive out to Purdue on Friday, the 6 of us were getting nervous. We started the weekend off with a dinner in what I think was Purdue's "President's" Box of their stadium. It was extremely neat because I have never been to their football stadium, and to be able to look all the way down on it, was just amazing.

The next day we had the actual competition. Here we found ourselves up against 5 other teams from Illinois with a "Clue Theme", Texas with a "Jurassic Park Theme", Michigan Tech with a "Super Heroes Theme", St. Olaf with a "Crazy Scientist Theme", and Ferris State with a "House of Rube Theme". Each of these teams had an impressive machine and it was clear to see that we had our work cut out for us.

With the results in, we ended up not placing, but needless to say, I had a blast. Being able to talk to people, especially little kids, and to be able to teach them something was well worth it. Overall St. Olaf took both first place overall and People's Choice award.

St. Olaf is a liberal arts school which makes me wonder if all of the engineering teams just over thought the entire task. Then I learned that they had a budget that was 6 times that of what we had, which gave them a lot more opportunities then us. So maybe it was more along the lines of that? There are so many questions as to what it could have been, but I do know that their machine was quite impressive, especially for non-engineering majors.

I hope that more people will become interested in the Rube Competition here on campus because it is something that can be challenging and fun at the same time. I know that I wished I would have gotten involved sooner, because I had a lot of fun working on it this year.

(I'll post a video and pictures of our machine at a later date!)

Chillax-A-Chair

So getting clicks on our videos is harder than I expected. I knew that it would be difficult because our idea isn't Funny, Entertaining, or something that a lot of people would like to sit down and watch. However, I think for only having posted these items about a week ago and having 3 of them succeed at passing the 350 isn't to bad. Now we just need to come up with more marketing ideas for our videos so we can get a couple hundred of clicks. Like I previous said, this is going to be a challenge.

Either way, check out our videos!


http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2580047/chillax_a_chair_introduction/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2588682/chillax_a_chair_introduction_2/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2592494/chillax_a_chair_intro/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2592860/how_to_part_1_materials/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2592992/how_to_part_2_insulation/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-T8ncswqw0kM/how_to_part_3_tubing/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2593280/how_to_part_4_cover_and_finishing/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-9GK5lGjAPrw/naming_the_chillax_a_chair/

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2593222/chillax_a_chair_first_prototype_test/

Hatred for doing Laundry.....

I'm one of those people who hate to do laundry. I wait until the last possible moment to do laundry, which is about after 3 weeks, and because of this, my laundry basket/bag is always over flowing. I normally have to take two different carrying mechanisms just to safely transport my clothing. With this being said, I always seem to over pack my bags and they always seem to break.

I wished there was an easy way to transport my laundry from one place to another. I know there are hampers on wheels, but they are extremely bulky, stiff, and sometimes hard to maneuver. I need something that would be easy to move, doesn't take up a lot of space, can be smashed into small spaces, and can handle a lot of clothes.

Any suggestions? (Besides doing my laundry more often!)