5/26/2010
Sure...you could use a pencil and paper, but what fun is that? The Illinois Rube Goldberg Team has focused its creative energies to build a marble maze designed to keep track of the number of summer visits by children in the Champaign Public Library's summer reading program.
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Sure...you could use a pencil and paper, but what fun is that? The Illinois Rube Goldberg Team has focused its creative energies to build a marble maze designed to keep track of the number of summer visits by children in the Champaign Public Library's summer reading program.
Last March, the Illinois team was approached by a library representative at Engineering Open House. Doug Tanaka, the current team president, saw the recently completed project as a great way to get involved off-campus.
“It was cool to do something for the community,” said Tanaka, who is a junior in materials science and engineering. “You get a different kind of reaction out of it. Now that we actually got a chance to build something solely for the community, it takes on a new level because we’re not doing it for ourselves.”
A Rube Goldberg is a contraption built to make simple tasks more complex. The machines are named after Rube Goldberg, an artist known for his drawings of complicated machines doing simple tasks in unnecessarily long ways. The Illinois Rube Goldberg Team competes regional and nationally with other college teams. In 2009, it finished second nationally with a “Clue” themed contraption that changed a light bulb in 70 steps.
Tanaka said the group is interested in finding new ways to have his team create more projects for the community, taking the team’s work well outside of the competition world.
“It’d be fun to reach out,” Tanaka said. “Building the machines themselves is pretty time consuming, but it would be fun to do small projects for the community.” The marble maze was created for the library's “Scare Up a Good Book” Summer Reading Game that runs from June 1 through August 15.
Most of all though, Tanaka feels it’s the most fun to just build the contraptions and see the reception they get.
“It’s great to see people’s reactions,” Tanaka said. “It’s kind of a favorite with the kids because it’s nothing real complicated, it’s just something that looks cool.”
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Writer: Alex Iniguez, Engineering Communications Office.
If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, Engineering Communications Office, 217/244-7716, editor.