WCTC hosts WI High School Regional Rube Goldberg Machine Contest

Waunakee High School takes home top honors, advances to finals

Congratulations to Waunakee High School for taking home top honors at the Wisconsin High School Rube Goldberg Machine Contest (RGMC) held at Waukesha County Technical College Friday, March 9.

Waunakee High School was one of 10 teams from Wisconsin and Illinois to show off their Rube Goldberg machines in 20 steps or more. Students are challenged to take an elementary task and provide a complex, zany solution using ordinary objects, mechanical gadgets and miscellaneous items to achieve a specific goal – this year, to pour cereal into a bowl. The completed machine must fit in an overall space of 250 cubic feet and run for no more than 2 minutes per run.

The contest gives students an opportunity to demonstrate their engineering skills, compete for prizes and vie for the chance to advance to the finals in April at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Listed below are the winners from this year’s contest:

Wisconsin regional winners:

1^st Place – Waunakee High School, $750 prize and advance to finals

2^nd Place – St. Catherine’s High School – Racine, $500 prize

3^rd Place – Kimberly High School, $250 prize

Specialty awards:

Most Creative Use of Materials – Kimberly High School

Best Design – Pius XI Catholic High School

Risk – Waupaca High School

Best Presentation – St. Catherine’s High School – Racine

Best Technical Construction – Waunakee High School

Best Technical Writing of Machine Steps – Milwaukee Lutheran High School

Most Interesting Step – Wauwatosa School District

Peer Award – Pius XI Catholic High School

Professor Butt’s Creative Spark Award – Waunakee High School

Rube Goldberg Spirit of Hilarious Invention Award – Waunakee High School

Helping Hand Teamwork Award – St. Catherine’s High School -- Racine

The RGMC is named after the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, sculptor, author and engineer who spent the early part of his career making “inventions” to tackle basic tasks. The event is coordinated by the Milwaukee Area Engineering and Technology Partnership, which includes WCTC, STEM Forward, Milwaukee Area Technical College and Milwaukee School of Engineering.

Mark your calendars! The Rube Goldberg Middle School Competition (Waukesha County Schools) is set for Friday, April 20 at WCTC! The challenge will be to ring a bell.