Purdue Students Win Rube Goldberg Contest

Dekortage writes "How long does it take to make a burger? Students from Purdue University's Society of Professional Engineers won the 2008 Rube Goldberg contest with a device that requires 156 steps to assemble a burger. According to the team captain, 'We put 4,000 to 5,000 man-hours into this machine since September, and all the hard work has been well worth it.' That's a long time to wait for dinner." Here's a video of the winning entry in operation.

Rube Goldberg

[MyNymWasTaken]

That's Goldberg.

http://www.rubegoldberg.com/ [rubegoldberg.com]

Re:Rube Goldberg

[reverseengineer]

The submitter is still waiting for the cat to frighten the pigeon into laying the egg that will roll down the chute to land on the lever that opens the cage so the trained monkey can run over and press the letter "D" on the keyboard.

Re:

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

You magnificent bastard...

The best part about Purdue University's machine

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't even make a burger, it just shoots you.

Re:

[DiEx-15]

Eat your heart out Daleks!

Wrong Video?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read burger, but I see orange juice...

Re:Wrong Video?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a link with a story that depicts the machine, although we don't get to watch it all the way through:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q4fTPwXy4U [youtube.com]

Re:

[snl2587]

Saw that coming...

nice

[joe 155]

that's pretty impressive. (It should have said in TFS though that it was their objective to make it have as many steps as possible) But I do have to wonder if it maybe wasn't the case that some of the steps were useless - things like "turn burger 1 degree clockwise, turn burger 1 degree anti-clockwise" - but I suppose even so it is an impressive feat of uselessness

Re:nice

[lilomar]

You don't know what a Rube Goldberg Machine [wikipedia.org] is, do you?

Re:

[gnick]

It does seem strangely appropriate that creating this impressively convoluted burger maker took an equally impressive 4k-5k man hours...

Re:nice

[Hatta]

Oh wise one, what would you have us spend our hours doing? Does there have to be a point to do something fun?

Re:

[Timmmm]

I agree. Is fun (or happiness, via fun) not the point of life? Even for the religions --- who would want to go to heaven if it wasn't fun there? If anyone can think of a better ultimate goal that doesn't just come down to 'making me happy' (or perhaps 'making other people happy') then I'd love to hear it.

Re:

[Missing_dc]

42

Re:

[Surt]

You might want to go to heaven regardless of the fun level if the alternative is unending infinite agony.

Re:

[lessthan]

That isn't necessarily correct. Isn't sensory deprivation a form of torture?

Re:

[VoltCurve]

agreed. People who have fun with engineering projects, building something as complex as possible just because they can. It's disgusting. and Video games? fuck video games. people who have fun have too much time on their hands. How DARE they enjoy their time as they see fit?

Re:

[Macrat]

What? You think they should be doing something else in engineering school like STUDY?

That's why US companies want to hire from India and China. They actually TEACH in school.

Re:

[i_b_don]

Wow... That's an unbelievability insane statement. Have you ever been to engineering school? Do you know what an engineer does? Engineering is the PRACTICAL use of scientific knowledge. You can learn all the equations in the world but until you actually apply them to BUILD something it's worthless crap filling your mind. You might as well close your school books and go home.

There is no better application in school than doing a project similar to this. Robot building projects and the like were the bes

Re:

[ShieldW0lf]

You're crazy to think that this was a waste of time and that we should more emulate China and India with rote memorization of equations. Give me an engineer who can build something any day of the week.

Easy to say that when you're not responsible for actually delivering those engineers that can build something. If you were, you would have already spent enough time trying and failing in the local market and you would know why it's necessary to go elsewhere. People who need to retreat to the meaningless an

Re:

[i_b_don]

Hm... ok. I am an engineer and I am responsible for "actually delivering those engineers that can build something" and one general truth of engineers is that they are strange people. It's rare to find a well rounded engineer and it's a fact of life that if you're responsible for getting results you have to be willing to accept a much wider array of people types in order to get the job done.

I mean, how judgmental do you have to be to say "You must be a sucky engineer because you built a Robe Goldberg mach

Re:

[Hatta]

I would have been more impressed if it actually cooked the burger.

Bad camerawork

[Kelz]

I couldn't help but notice that with the crappy camerawork you have no idea what process is going on at once. Can anyone find a better video?

Re:

[fm6]

If you really want to follow the process, you need to know all the steps. Getting that into a video would be a major production in itself. I'd settle for a written summary.

Re:

[darthdavid]

How's this work for you?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU [youtube.com]

Re:

[nacturation]

Okay, I will now memorize that video ID... and here I thought I was immune to a little R & R.
 

Re:

[splatterboy]

fm6 is right - the company I work for made this commercial about 6 years ago and the cost was in the millions: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4187430023476942057 [google.com]

the the machine itself is designed to be cinematic. The Purdue competition they have a cube to work within and the camera people are not artists or professionals...

would you like fries with that?

[kris.montpetit]

How many steps to make it a combo?

Where's the Beef?

[Jason Earl]

I watched the full video, and I didn't see any hamburgers get made. Did I miss something?

Re:Where's the Beef?

[Tetsujin]

Well, if you followed the link and it was a guy singing about how he's never gonna give you up or let you go, then you followed the wrong link.

Re:

[Tetsujin]

Ah, quite right, I should have checked the online lyrics guide [internetis...siness.com] before posting...

Re:

[Chrisje]

Did I just spot a Rick Astley reference on /.?

Oooohhh... I didn't realise there were Stock, Aitken and Waterman fans out here.

Re:Where's the Beef?

[micksam7]

The video is of last year's machine, which made orange juice.

Orange juice burger??

[Feanturi]

The winning entry according to the article was the burger maker. But the video linked in the summary is a machine making orange juice.

Re:Orange juice burger??

[tist]

This video shows orange juice in the making.
The video to the burger maker is here: http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/rube/rube.index.html [purdue.edu]

Enjoy

Re:

[Sneeka2]

Thanks, but unfortunately the same incompetent cameramen as in posts video. Could they possibly show any less of what's going on, next to pointing the camera straight at the ceiling?

Re:

[QuantumG]

Man, why do all video players suck? (except google/youtube)

What's so hard about this? Download the video, play it when you have enough downloaded. Why does everyone try to "buffer" or measure speed throughput or something.

Re:

[mattOzan]

The winning entry according to the article was the burger maker. But the video linked in the summary is a machine making orange juice.

That's the burger of the future, man! We're going to be drinking tacos, steaks, souffles, you-name-it!

Re:

[compro01]

they linked to the winner is last year's contest.

Wrong video?

[webrunner]

The video seems to be of last year's Perdue entry (which was an Orange Juice machine)

Re:

[navygeek]

Get something right, only to get something wrong... It's Purdue.

Yummy!

[Forthan Red]

I like my hamburgers without the pulp.

Geez

[cromar]

Geez... 14 comments and the vid's already slow as molasses dripping from December scrotae.

Re:

[Drewmeister]

If I'm not mistaken, here's an alternate video: YouTubed! [youtube.com]

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Coral Cache [nyud.net] can help.

Burger with net negative calorie count

[davidwr]

Imagine if a human did all of those steps. He would burn more calories than he consumed.

Burgers as health food? Who knew.

Re:Burger with net negative calorie count

[Applekid]

I'd mod you up, but the damn marble I let go to drop into the basket to pull the string through the pully to release the pin to pop the spring to strike the match against the abrasive pad to burn the rope that releases the weight to hit the macro key on my keyboard that selects the dropdown item, scrolls to the bottom, and hits the "Moderate Posts" button came off its track.

Sorry about that.

Re:Burger with net negative calorie count

[bark76]

It's nice to see someone admit that they don't have the marbles to mod a post up.

Re:

[Minwee]

Are you trying to Lennon-roll us with that video?

Re:

[Minwee]

You're right. Lennon was from the UK.

Do you have any other insight into the history of the Beatles you would like to share with us?

I have a better idea

[Minwee]

Next year, can we please build an insanely complicated machine which will beat the entire membership of the Phi Chapter of Theta Tau with the Naughty Web Designer Stick? After being exposed to their Flash Monstrosity that's something I would like to see happen over and over again.

Re:

[CompMD]

As a Triangle, I will happily assist in the beating of Theta Taus. :)

Re:

[Chrisje]

And ye shall name it Steely Dan.

In other news...

[222]

Still no cure for cancer. Sounds neat, though.

Re:

[aadvancedGIR]

Seriously, I wouldn't want any of these whackos near me if I was to be cured even for a simple cold.

-Steps 1->250: remove skin
-Steps 251->278: drain blood
-Steps 279->1423: separate various tissues from the bones
-Step 1424: dump infected tissues.
-Steps 1425->2897: put back everything
-Steps 2898->3527: try to revive it
-Step 3528: incinerate the evidences

Don't be fooled!

[Starturtle]

This is clearly a thinly disguised promotion for the Incredible Machine 4!

Re:

[SCHecklerX]

Mmmmmmm Mmmmmmm!

You ever have a big kahuna burger?

Title in 156 easy steps??

[zappepcs]

Seriously! I thought this country was running out of engineers? Guess we just needed better problems. For anyone interested in a bit of GolDberg fun, try the made-of-Lego Great Ball Contraption http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&output=googleabout&btnG=Search+our+site&q=lego%20gbc [google.com]
Truly team effort in creating time wasting fun.

Where is MicroSoft's entry?

[dr_db]

I am sure that all admins can attest to the fact that MS products require a ridiculous number of extra steps to perform simple tasks.

Re:

[Chrisje]

You have to be kidding me. Modding this post 2: Informative is just ridiculous.

Firstly it's incorrect. Some things are easier in Windows, some in Linux, some in HP-UX. Writing this post is just preposterous, even by /. standards.

Secondly, it's not in the least informative. Which things? Where are the links?

WTF, guys?

Re:

[dr_db]

Sigh, I was trying to be funny, after a 2 week SBS disaster. Yes, many things are easier in Windows, as long as you are on the beaten path. Exiting that path usually becomes an edventure though.

In tribute to Rube Goldberg

[MobyDisk]

In tribute to Rube Goldberg, the web site is done in Flash instead of HTML, and all the text is really bitmaps.

Re:

[TheSpoom]

They should make a machine that scans a page with the website's text on it and OCRs it for each page view.

whay is "fast food" still so labor-intensive?

[peter303]

The local big-name burger still takes a minimal staff of about 6, and maybe 20 during rush hour. A lot of the work is taking the order, making payment, and filling the order. We havent really progressed that much past the automats (cafeteria vending slots) of the 1930s or Ray Kroks one-button milkshake machines he sold before starting McDonalds in the 1950s.

A couple years back I saw self-serve terminals at a MacDonalds. But it was a GUI disaster and complicated to use. It had lots of subscreens for

Re:

[iocat]

Turns out it takes less time and money to have one expert (eg a trained teen-ager) listen to what you want and enter it than it does to have you enter it yourself. A few Arbys in CA tried self-service terminals, but it was so confusing and impersonal they all switched back (or went under).

Re:

[el_gordo101]

McD's has actually started outsourcing the "may I take your order" [arstechnica.com] part of the equation. Don't know how much more efficient it is, though...

Re:

[daveime]

Gooback : Gan I elp yoo ?
Stan : I want a burger and some fries.
Gooback : Chigen Sahnwish ?

I for one welcome our goo covered fast food order taking overlords.

Re:

[Henry Pate]

We havent really progressed that much past the automats (cafeteria vending slots) of the 1930s

The technology behind the counter has progressed a lot though. McDonald's doesn't flip burgers anymore, they use computer controlled clamshells that cook both sides at once, you can cook up to 96 (1.6oz) patties in 42 seconds, 24 quarter pound patties in 106 seconds, toasters that toast multiple buns of multiple sizes perfectly in 8 seconds, heated cabinets that allow longer holding times at consistent and safe temperatures. Fryers that maintain temperature better than ever before, which makes everything

In related news: after a long search,

[DavidHumus]

an ANSI committee has appointed a prize-winning team of Purdue engineering students to draft the new C++ standard.

Here's a video?

[mustafap]

>Here's a video of the winning entry in operation.

Duh. Bye bye video.

If You Like This Kind of Stuff

[Nom du Keyboard]

If you like this kind of stuff, get a copy of The Way Things Go (1987), a 30-minute documentary of a whole series of events, each triggering the next.

BOILER UP!!!!

[Monoliath]

GO BOILERS! :D

What about the cow?

[NewsWatcher]

I would have thought the first step was killing the cow or pig. I guess it is back to the drawing board.

Contest is rigged

[gray code]

I'm a member of another chapter of the same engineering fraternity and have competed in the Rube Goldberg competition. The contest is a farce. Purdue wins every year. It's held at Purdue; Purdue profs are the judges; it's held during Parents' Weekend for Pete's sake. Purdue knows before anyone else what the requirements will be and they don't have to worry about making their entry portable enough to go further than across campus. The headline should just read "Purdue holds Xth annual Theta Tau Rube Gol

Re:

[gray code]

Ok, so out of 6 years Purdue lost twice? What was your point again? Obviously they don't win EVERY time, but the number of times they DO win is questionable, to say the least.

First Post

[cleatsupkeep]

I would have had the first post, but do you know how long it takes for a Rube Goldberg machine to type for you?

Nice zoom

[Kenoli]

Clicking on the image gives you a SMALLER version of it, and an option to BUY it. Buy it. Seriously. I laughed.

Sketches

[KlausBreuer]

Lovely :)

And may I recommend a set of original sketches by Rube Goldberg: http://www.rubegoldberg.com/ [rubegoldberg.com]