Even if you don't know them by name, you've no doubt seen Rube Goldberg machines – those giant, complex contraptions designed to perform a very simple task like turning on a light switch.
But this summer, the complex machines were helping to teach three very complex issues to Manhattan high school students interning at The Cooper Union: recycling, globalization, and the real focus here, engineering.
“Each group is allowed only a four-foot cube that they could work within which has a notch notched out at the end and that's restricted real estate – they're not allowed to go there,” said Professor George Delagrammatikas at The Cooper Union. “And each machine starts with a ball that falls at the same x, y, z coordinate within that cube and it ends with them delivering a ball of their choice back to the center of the machine. The point is: get as many steps as you can and try to get as many inventive, innovative and ingenious steps as they can.”
Each group is only allowed to use materials that were given to them in a box before the course. If they use anything outside the box, they have to prove to me they got it from a garbage can or recycling bin.
The cube doesn't start spinning until every machine successfully switches on its light bulb. The moral: no individual succeeds until they all succeed.
“Yeah, we clapped and laughed. First time we saw it, it was like a magic thing going on, the spinning cube,” said 11th grader Judze Parajuli.
“We make everything from junk, so it's kinda like recycling,” said 11th grader Chun Ji Jin. “I like that. It’s good for the environment.”
It took the students five weeks to build their machines. They were allowed no textbooks, no computers. They were even banned from using math. Their only real tool was their imaginations.