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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.

10 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  2. 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.
  3. 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. 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

  5. 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!
  6. 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."
  7. 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?

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    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  8. 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.