The first step in this story takes place in Rice Lake, on the campus of UW-Barron County, a small two-year school, where four engineering students set out to build a Rube Goldberg machine. A Rube Goldberg Machine emulates the cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who was famous for making these complicated, crazy cartoons for a simple task. He never actually made a physical machine, ever. He was smart enough not to try to build it.
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For sure! This is Dru Galetka. Dru won a Rube Goldberg National Championship in high school. Yeah, I went to New Auburn High School and they're pretty big on Rube Goldberg Machines. I think they've won like four or five national titles. Dru and three friends decided to enter the Annual College Championship in Columbus, Ohio. A task that would consume almost of all of their free time. Probably six days a week. And I'd say an average of four-- maybe five hours a day, for seven months. So it was a long time. Thousands and thousands of hours.
The assignment
Create a complex machine to open an umbrella. I just let them do their thing because that's how they're going to learn. When it came to, like, developing ideas, we-- Great minds think alike.
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The assignment
They built a 45-step machine that paid tribute to inventor Nikola Tesla. We just wanted functionality and the aesthetic appeal of the whole machine. We didn't want just this cluster of things that you really couldn't follow very well. The machine was ready for the national competition. They just needed a way to get it there. They had a very Wisconsin idea. We're kind of a low budget operation so we used our family Explorer and my husband's ice shack. And drove all the way down to Columbus, Ohio. That's how everyone knew we were from Wisconsin. No one else pulled up in an ice shack. It quickly became apparent they were in the big leagues now. Personally I didn't think we were going to win. It was cool we did this, but there's no chance in heck we're gonna be able to be able to pull this off. We were up against the big dogs in the engineering world. There were two teams from Penn State. There were three teams from Purdue. University of Texas, University of Tennessee, Arizona State University. All these other big engineering schools that have put thousands and thousands of dollars into their machines. I think we had, what? A tool case full of hand tools. And a theater shop. Yeah, a theater shop with a chop saw. That's about all we had. And a table saw. That's all the tools we had. It was David versus Goliath. And David was armed with marbles, books and a machine made out of wood. Their hand-crafted creation was put to the test. However one of my life-long idols is Nikola Tesla. Nikola was an inventor, mechanical engineer, electrical engineer, and designed one of the very first AC electrical supply systems. We have to give a short presentation about it. Explaining what it is and then we run it. And then there's an 8-minute set up and then they run the machine again.
click
The assignment
Seven months of work came down to two 45-second runs. No pressure. There's certain steps where we just hold our breath during that part because there's always a certain percentage of time where it works. I took another deep breath, waited for the next part or another critical point. Once all the critical points were done, I know the rest of the machine will work. So then-- deep breath. Here's the truth about how Dru felt. Dru our team leader, he was basically green while that machine was going through.
rumble
The assignment
Their nerves wavered. The machine didn't. We had a flawless run So that was really exciting. Then they did their little Tesla thing and reset it. We waited for the judges. And then they ran it again and had another flawless run. All of a sudden there was color in his face again. And we were like, "Oh! Wow! You were nervous."
swoosh, clunk
The assignment
Two perfect runs. The underdogs from Barron County had surprised even themselves. Now they waited for the judges to announce the winner. They did second place and we didn't get second place. Purdue got second place. And then we were just sweating, nervous. And she said, "It's my pleasure "that this team won this award because "I know the captain of the team. "He's already won the high school award." She's talking about Dru. It's Dru. And it didn't click, and then it clicked, and then we're all like, "Oh my God!" We just went crazy. We were so excited. I was shocked. Zach was jumping around. So everybody was having a good time. Tiny UW-Barron County had bested the best engineering schools in the country. They were national champions. It was a pretty good feeling. I mean, I'll always-- Personally, I love being the underdog because nobody takes you seriously until you do something big. So it was a great feeling. And for four college students, an ice shack trip they'll never forget. I'm so proud of them because it takes a lot of effort and energy and creativity. To be honest, we probably can't thank her enough for what she did and how she handled this because it's definitely probably given us all a sense of great pride that we did this. They're going to be great engineers.
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