The name “Rube Goldberg” is frequently brought up in Fieldston’s classrooms, and with good reason. Working as a newspaper cartoonist in the 1900s, Rube Goldberg designed fake machines–now known as Rube Goldberg Machines (RGM)–which were created by his fictitious character Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts. These machines would incorporate the most abstract and impractical interactions possible to perform a task as simple as turning on a light. In one of Goldberg’s many machines, according to NPR, one such interaction is a “bright full moon causes love birds to become romantic, and as they get together their weight causes a perch to tip and pull a string.” Rube Goldberg’s name has since become synonymous with any sort of machine or process that wildly overcomplicates a simple task in an impractical way.
Goldberg’s legacy has since been continued heavily in education, with building RGMs being a popular activity for young students. The fun and cooperative in-class activity has even turned into a competitive national competition. The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest is held annually and attracts competitors from across the country. Fieldston’s own Rube Goldberg Engineering Club started to participate in the competition in 2015 and has since won several awards including the 2020’s top 3 awards: the “2020 Legacy Award” and the “2020 Best Use of a Slinky Award”. This year, the Rube Goldberg Engineering Club intends to uphold its tradition of competing.
Every year, the club begins to meet in October. The club has traditionally started with a short introduction to what an RGM is and what the main goal of the club is, which is to enter, and ultimately win, the national contest. This year was no different. In mid-October the first club meeting was held, introductions were given and teams were formed. By breaking up the larger club size into multiple teams, it not only increases the chances of winning the national competition, but more importantly it provides members with a more interactive and hands-on experience. Once teams were made, they immediately began planning their machines around a specific task given by the national contest. In past years, these required tasks have been to open an umbrella, put on a band-aid, and to put a coin in a piggy bank, just to name a few.
In essence, an RGM is an unbroken chain reaction consisting of multiple energy transfers. An energy transfer is any system in which the energy of one or multiple objects is transferred to a new object. These interactions can be as simple as a ball rolling down a ramp that knocks over a book, or as complicated as a vertically stretched slinky that, when released, rapidly contracts and knocks over a piece of wood that triggers a new interaction. When several of these energy transfers are put together, they create a machine that can function entirely on its own once the first step is triggered by a person. When designing these machines, it is important to think about how to creatively incorporate simple machines (pulleys, inclined planes, wedges, screws, levers, and a wheel and axle) into the RGM because while they are not required for the national contest, they increase the value of the machine. You are free to use whatever equipment, materials, or interactions you would like to accomplish the given task as long as they fall within the competition parameters. Of these parameters, one of the most notable ones is that the machine and all parts included in the functioning of the machine must stay within a 10’L x 10’W x 8’H area, which restricts certain possibilities and introduces an additional obstacle to work around.
This year, the club has been split into 2 different teams: one consisting of seniors and juniors, and the other of sophomores and freshmen. Each one began to design their machines keeping the size restrictions and required task in mind. This year the task is to open a book. Aside from designing the energy transfers, each group must also design a theme that the energy transfers and machines follow. For example, the sophomore/freshman team is building a machine with a fairy tale theme in which each energy transfer references a classic fairy tale. From an outside perspective it may seem as though everything in the club this year is going smoothly. Teams have been formed, themes have been chosen, and machines are being built. However, this year has proven to be more of a challenge than any other because of COVID. COVID has restricted the club’s ability to meet as frequently as they have in years past, therefore reducing the amount of time each team has had to work on their machines. In order to make up for lost time, in addition to weekly Tuesday meetings during activities, club members have been meeting every Saturday from 9am to 4pm for the past several weeks. Now, there remains only a short period of time until their machines must be completed by March 5 in order to be ready for the national competition. Despite members’ best efforts, the machines still look like they have only been worked on for a few weeks instead of a few months, and the pressure is setting in.
Rube Goldberg Engineering Club members do not only want to win the national competition for the fame and title they would receive. Although those are definitely added bonuses, members want to win because the club means something significant to them. Winning the national competition is no longer just about a sense of accomplishment, but rather as proof that we have grown as students, engineers, and team members. Former regional competition judge and current Fieldston physics teacher Jon Lambert says that he appreciates the excitement students get when combining the ways in which they engage with the outside world through the machines they create. He believes that this is a sign of their hard work and dedication as a team.
In order to build these machines that represent so much about their makers, students must learn how to build them in the first place. However, while learning how to use power tools, how to properly navigate a workspace, or how to effectively design and engineer a machine are all very beneficial things to learn, Dr. Church, faculty advisor of the club, believes the real value of the Rube Goldberg Engineering Club lies in a much more meaningful lesson. He believes that the club gives students two things, the first of which being practical problem solving abilities. “In real life there are no classrooms, there are no tests. Just teams of people with different skills working together to find solutions. That is what the Rube Goldberg Engineering Club is. Building real life skills while having a great deal of fun building a ridiculous machine.” Building an RGM requires students to invent something that has never been seen, thought of, or made before. This forces them to imitate, ideate, innovate, and iterate, an experience most students never get, forcing them to learn how to adapt to, and overcome obstacles in front of them. Aside from building students’ critical thinking skills, the club also teaches them how to work together in teams. In order to build a successful RGM “each person’s portion [has] to work perfectly. This could easily lead to frustration or anger, but quite the opposite happens. Team members pull together, there really is a family atmosphere.” Again, Dr. Church emphasizes the value the club has in teaching members lessons that extend beyond the workshop. Whether you are in the club for one year of high school or all four, you will come away having learned how to effectively work with others and the values of teamwork.
Rube Goldberg machines also represent a blend of its makers’ respective backgrounds and skills. No one person is capable of building a quality RGM on their own because it would lack the combined creativity only obtained from a diverse team of students with various skill sets. Bernie Waldman (V) has been a member of the Rube Goldberg Engineering Club since his freshman year and says that “Good collaboration and teamwork is absolutely essential in the Engineering Club. […] Most of the time working in the teams means figuring out how to divide up tasks, learning what everyone’s strengths are, and having amazing people around to bounce ideas off of, but it can also mean getting outvoted, having to make compromises, and ultimately having to change your ideas about the machine.” Although this may not be something that everyone in the club immediately realizes, building an RGM is not necessarily about how you rank in the national contest, it is about the bonds you build and lessons you learn leading up to the competition.
Some members are now trying to extend these lessons beyond Fieldston. Noah Glassman (V) has been working closely with our Ethics Department and the Riverdale Neighborhood House (RNH) to help bring what he has learned in Fieldston’s Rube Goldberg Engineering Club to younger, underprivileged students who may not otherwise receive such lessons. He says, “Since freshman year, our club has taught my teammates and me many traits, such as leadership and perseverance. Since then, we have attempted to pass these intangible aspects of our club onto the current freshmen. Hopefully, we are able to do the same for the students at RNH in an enjoyable, meaningful way.” Noah aims to share the transformative lessons of his life with as many people as possible and give back to his community.
Fieldston’s Rube Goldberg Engineering Club should not be taken at face value. It imparts more than just the necessary skills to build an RGM on its members. It gives them an invaluable experience at a young age. It teaches them life-long lessons that they will take through high school, college, and their professional careers. It prepares them for the real world by, as Dr. Church puts it, being “the epitome of progressive education.” So while the Rube Goldberg Engineering Club’s machines may not be completed by the national contest this year, its members will try their absolute best to finish them because it will symbolize the culmination of everything they have learned and accomplished thus far.
