Purdue Takes First in Inefficiency Contest

Trying to make the simple ridiculously complicated, a team of student engineers in West Lafayette, Ind., built a contraption that puts a golf ball on a tee by way of a crashing miniature skier, a crossbow and a toy boat. The machine took 54 mechanical, electrical and fluid dynamic steps to tee up a regulation golf ball. It won first place in the 11th annual National Rube Goldberg Machine contest at Purdue University. The event gets its name from the cartoonist known for drawing vastly complicated machines that performed simple tasks. Every year, student teams from schools across the country keep Goldberg’s spirit alive by designing well-oiled models of immense inefficiency.