Rube Goldberg Competition

This past Thursday through Monday, I went on a rad trip to Ohio with 17 other awesome members of the UA Rube Goldberg Club to compete at the national Rube Goldberg Competition at the Center of Science and Industry (COSI) in Columbus. Here's what went down:

Wednesday afternoon: I pack and bring my stuff over to the Rube room in time to see the 15 passenger van and a truck with a trailer expertly maneuvered into the Civil Engineering courtyard (trust me, the alleyway in is tiny). I left my stuff and observed the broken-down machine for the last time until we hit Ohio.

Thursday morning: Time is 2:30 AM MST. I get up, get dressed, and down a bowl of cereal to use up the last of my milk. I grab apples out of the fridge as an attempt to preemptively counteract all the junk food we'll be eating, shove my snacks and some deodorant into a backpack, grab my water bottle, and walk over to Civil Engineering. I'm one of the first to arrive, but I when I get there, I see the club president wearing pajamas, socks with flip-flops, and a bright orange top hat. People start to trickle in, and someone brings donuts. We discuss the route we'll be taking, the driving schedule, and the mad hype that we're all feeling. I start out in the truck, which has more room, and once we're all loaded, we hit the road to begin the thirty hour cross country trek.
This truck, along with having all the normal road trip stuff like water and blankets in it, also has a few coils of wire, a package of BB's, and a 2-foot long Styrofoam cactus in it. The first hour or so is spent rocking out to Pit Bull, and after that, the two of us in the back try to sleep a little.

Thursday midday: At about 1:30 PM MST, we get to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We stop off at a Walmart near the freeway to pick up some walkie-talkies, batteries, and mousetraps. We eat lunch at the first of many MacDonald's at the Walmart. By this point, we've all shuffled vehicles and seats a few times and are mostly awake. The kid's meal toys are hoarded.
After that, it is my turn to copilot the truck, which means it is my job to keep the driver awake and to man the walkie-talkie. Along the way,  it is decided that the call name for the truck with the trailer is "Rattlesnake" and the van is "Mongoose."
After my shift, I go back to the van. We play the Question Game, stop off for dinner somewhere in Texas, and keep going.

Thursday night: Sleep - as best as possible with stops every four hours and no room.

Friday morning: We stop for breakfast at a Subway at a gas station in Missouri. And we keep going.

Friday afternoon: We get to the hotel in Ohio - finally - and unhook the trailer from the truck. It's about 2:30 local time, and we take about 45 minutes to shower and clean up. We change into team shirts and eat lunch at a diner that's right next to the hotel. The people working there seemed really surprised to see a bunch of ravenous college kids all requesting separate checks at that time.

Friday night: After eating, we hook up the trailer again and headed to COSI, where we unloaded the machine and start putting it back together. We're the first ones there. Turns out that the same weekend as the competition is a Girl Scout Camp-In at COSI, so we get in at about the same time as a bunch of neon shirted girls.
About an hour after we start putting stuff together, Purdue's team shows up. There machine is much easier to put together as theirs beaks into just two parts plus weights (ours has two walls, a 3-part floor, a ceiling, and a bunch of shelves, plus weights). We say hi and admire each other's machines.
The people running the competition had ordered pizza for us, so at about 8:00 PM local time, we stop and eat. The judges and Rube Goldberg's granddaughter show up, and we spend some time chatting and bragging about our 31-hour trip.
Eventually, Washington St. Louis shows up, and we help bring their stuff in. Their machine also only breaks into two parts, so they set it up quickly and help finish the pizza.
We run our machine once, decide most of the strings are too long, and work on the machine until we are kicked out. We then go back to the hotel and sleep - horizontally!

Saturday morning: The day of the competition has arrived! We get up early and eat breakfast at a Tim Horton's across the street from the hotel (apparently, those are a big deal) and get to the museum at 7AM to start fixing things and setting up some more. Penn State eventually comes in and gets everything set up on time. At this point, the museum isn't open yet, but the occasional groups of girl scouts and docents walk through and ask questions. All four teams are setting and running their machines. The clatter of marbles and mousetraps begins. The real crowds start coming through when the museum opens, and from then on, there are tons of people watching, admiring, and asking questions.

Saturday midday: Game time. "Rules" start at 11AM (only two people touching the machine and a total of six allowed around it), and the competition gets underway at 11:30. Before running the machines, teams get two minutes to explain them. The other teams just run through their steps, but we have a skit based on the adventures of the Sonny Waters Adventuring Guild (our machine's theme).  After some touches, Penn State and our team decide to void our first runs, while Washington's run was perfect. After 20 minutes to reset, the machines are run through again, and Purdue and Washington take their voids. We had our first perfect run at Nationals! Another twenty, and a third round.
Each of the machines got set and run a few more times before awards, and the crowds never went away.
Awards time - we all hold our breath. The overall winner and the legacy award go to Purdue, Washington St. Louis gets second, People's Choice, and Best Step for growing flowers, and we get Third.
This is Purdue's machine.  
This is an earlier version of Penn State's. (They cleaned it up a lot and added a dragon.)
I can't find a video of Washington's.

Saturday night: Afterwards, we travel to Ohio State to get dinner and do the touristy thing. The place where the team had gotten dinner last year had closed, and everything else was full because it was a game day (spring football or something. We got plenty of strange looks in our green shirts), so we end up at a bar at the student union. We go explore, find a glass 10 story library and whispering steps, and after walking around a lot, we head back to the hotel for a toast and the last horizontal non-squished sleep we'll get in a while.   

The way back: In St. Louis, we decide to detour because there are tornado warnings in Oklahoma. Instead of hitting tornado in Missouri and Oklahoma, we hit massive thunderstorms and traffic through Arkansas and Texas. Sleep was had, jams were played, stories were told, and a random spin-the-bottle app was laughed at. I spent the last stretch in the truck, helping one of the guys develop creatures for his fantasy novel (faceless shape shifters and hallucinogenic flowers, anyone?). We made it back to U of A at about 6:00 MST, unloaded, and went to sleep.

And that was what I did last weekend. (Pictures coming)