Slashdot Mirror
Purdue Claims World Record Goldberg Machine
With 244 steps The Time Machine, built by by members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, took first place and broke a world record at the 24th Annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. From the article: "It starts with the Big Bang, re-creates the extinction of the dinosaurs, holds a jousting competition, flips over an album, and simulates World War II, a shuttle launch, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even the alleged apocalypse in 2012. In its precisely executed review of history, 'The Time Machine,' a Rube Goldberg contraption built by members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, incorporates a record-breaking 244 steps—all to water a single flower."
There's a much better take available at Purdue's newsroom. It looks like it didn't run quite perfectly, though (the timeline arrow never hit the end).
It was. I watched this one live at the regional competition. Each step was started with a electromechanical actuator and each one ended on a switch. Each of the stages had microswitches when it was 'reset' and the back panel had lights that lit up when the stage was reset. It allowed it to be debugged easily and if a stage got stuck they could skip it with the switches.