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Purdue Students Win Rube Goldberg Contest

Posted by kdawson on from the lucrative-offers-from-mickey-dee dept.

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.

17 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Rube Goldberg by MyNymWasTaken · · Score: 3, Informative

    That's Goldberg.

    http://www.rubegoldberg.com/

    1. Re:Rube Goldberg by reverseengineer · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --
      "FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
  2. The best part about Purdue University's machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  3. Wrong Video? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    1. Re:Wrong Video? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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

  4. Where's the Beef? by Jason+Earl · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    1. Re:Where's the Beef? by Tetsujin · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --
      Bow-ties are cool.
    2. Re:Where's the Beef? by micksam7 · · Score: 3, Informative

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

  5. Orange juice burger?? by Feanturi · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    1. Re:Orange juice burger?? by tist · · Score: 5, Informative

      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

      Enjoy

    2. Re:Orange juice burger?? by Sneeka2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      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?

      --
      Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
  6. Re:nice by lilomar · · Score: 3, Informative

    You don't know what a Rube Goldberg Machine is, do you?

    --
    The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
  7. Burger with net negative calorie count by davidwr · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    Burgers as health food? Who knew.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:Burger with net negative calorie count by Applekid · · Score: 5, Funny

      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.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
    2. Re:Burger with net negative calorie count by bark76 · · Score: 4, Funny

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

      --
      Help find a cure for cancer!
  8. Re:nice by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  9. In tribute to Rube Goldberg by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Funny

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