Team Design 07.08

The term Rube Goldberg Machine refers to a device, which achieves a simple task by using a complex set of actions. The machine is named so after Reuben Lucius Goldberg (1883 – 1970), a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist. In his early years, Reuben Goldberg used to be an engineer, and invented some bizarre machinery, which, as he said, were a “symbol of man’s capacity for exerting maximum effort to achieve minimal results”.

Never the less Rude Goldberg machine uses advanced engineering knowledge, requires good understanding of energy storage and transfer, and demands absolute precision from its creators. Making one is a task for a real engineer.

The goal of this task is to design a Rube Goldberg Machine, which can be assembled quickly from predesigned components. The machine should be able to perform 5 missions missions (water the flower, light the candle, make soap bubbles, ring the bicycle ring, raise the flag) at 4 platforms within a predefined time-frame.

Team Design 04.08

The second topic starts today and participants will build a Helium airship. This device,lifted by helium, should be able to fly, to take off from a base and to turn in order to finish as fast as possible a track. The track has 3 different testing: first objective is to take off, pass over a bar and landing. Second one is a speed test and the last one is tpo complete a slalom.
Teams will have 2 days to built their solution, test and make fly their propotipe and then will be evalueted in front of a jury.

Team Design 03.08

The primary reason for climate change and air pollution is the increasing emissions of atmospheric pollutants driven by increasing demand for energy by residential sector. Architects and engineers can contribute to emissions reduction and sustainable development through designing smart houses. Smart houses use advanced technologies to control the use of energy. In addition, the energy usage for such purposes as heating, light etc. is more rational, which helps to be more sustainable.

The task of the teams is to build a model of a house, which concentrates on using as much external light as possible. The illumination in the rooms will be measured using a luxmeter, and the house should be well-lit with different positions of the sun. By completing the task, students will learn the ways to use light for illuminating residential houses most efficiently.