{"id":433204,"date":"2025-12-08T12:15:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/433204\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T12:15:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:15:26","slug":"phillys-rube-goldberg-machine-contest-returns-this-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/433204\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly\u2019s Rube Goldberg machine contest returns this spring"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/pigiron.org\/contraption-contest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Philadelphia Contraption Contest<\/a>, coming in April, teaches kids that life is complicated.\n<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes, needlessly so.\n<\/p>\n<p>So why not have some fun with it?\n  <\/p>\n<p>The contest asks middle school students to design machines that complete a simple task in as convoluted a manner as possible. Known as <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/its-complicated-life-and-work-of-rube-goldberg-at-phillys-jewish-museum\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rube Goldberg machines<\/a>, the contraptions in this contest must ultimately ring a bell, as a nod to the Liberty Bell and America\u2019s 250th birthday.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBeing in Philly with the <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/series\/philadelphia-250\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">semiquincentennial<\/a>, the proposal is it has to ring a bell, basically like the Liberty Bell,\u201d said Dan Rothenberg, co-creator of the experimental performance company Pig Iron Theatre, which is sponsoring the contest.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoesn\u2019t have to be the Liberty Bell, but that\u2019s our semiquincentennial tie-in,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n<p>The creator of the contest, Victor Fiorillo, said the machines will be judged for their Rube Goldbergian properties.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cComplexity, completion of the task, absurdity,\u201d said Fiorillo, whose day job is writing for Philadelphia Magazine. \u201cRube Goldberg machines are based on the cartoons of Rube Goldberg and those cartoons were always funny. So, humor is part of this.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>Even if these whimsical and not always structurally sound machines fail their main objective, points are given for enthusiasm.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMaybe there\u2019s a machine that just can\u2019t complete the task, but the teamwork shown by the team is so over the top,\u201d Fiorillo said. \u201cThat might be a teamwork award.\u201d\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":433205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,30814,86645,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-433204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-250","13":"tag-pig-iron-theatre","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115683899603038613","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}