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The Philadelphia Contraption Contest, coming in April, teaches kids that life is complicated.
Sometimes, needlessly so.
So why not have some fun with it?
The contest asks middle school students to design machines that complete a simple task in as convoluted a manner as possible. Known as Rube Goldberg machines, the contraptions in this contest must ultimately ring a bell, as a nod to the Liberty Bell and America’s 250th birthday.
“Being in Philly with the semiquincentennial, the proposal is it has to ring a bell, basically like the Liberty Bell,” said Dan Rothenberg, co-creator of the experimental performance company Pig Iron Theatre, which is sponsoring the contest.
“Doesn’t have to be the Liberty Bell, but that’s our semiquincentennial tie-in,” he said.
The creator of the contest, Victor Fiorillo, said the machines will be judged for their Rube Goldbergian properties.
“Complexity, completion of the task, absurdity,” said Fiorillo, whose day job is writing for Philadelphia Magazine. “Rube Goldberg machines are based on the cartoons of Rube Goldberg and those cartoons were always funny. So, humor is part of this.”
Even if these whimsical and not always structurally sound machines fail their main objective, points are given for enthusiasm.
“Maybe there’s a machine that just can’t complete the task, but the teamwork shown by the team is so over the top,” Fiorillo said. “That might be a teamwork award.”