2014
Zip a Zipper.
Theme: A Simple Way to Get Ready for Work
Step Count: 78
Result: Won 1st place at the Regional and National Competitions. Won the People’s Choice at the Regional Competition. Won Legacy Award at National Competition.
Discussion: This year we decided to head in a new direction. Rather than focus on large step counts, we pulled back and went more for visually appealing steps and more everyday items. In addition to this, we also opted to place a human inside our machine. This idea was thoroughly discussed with the competition chairman and in the end it was deemed acceptable. The Regional competition was a rather tense scene due to the large number of issues that arose the morning of competition. With several systems failing, we had to bypass certain steps and jury rig certain portions. However, even with these problems we were able to earn first place at Regionals. With these issues smoothed out, we progressed to Nationals. At Nationals, we faced stiff competition from the other teams. At the end of the three competition runs the teams were all tied. Ultimatly, the judging came down to the less technical portion of the scoring. In the end, we won first place by a margin of 2 points.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! May 14th, 2014
We were lucky enough to be invited onto the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show. We presented our machine on national television and we able to zip Guillermo's zipper. This was made possible through the generousity of both the Jimmy Kimmel Live! show and YKK.
LinkPresentation at Regionals Competition
A full run through of the machine at the Purdue Armory during the Regionals competiton. This run is narrated by Adam Bahrainwala and in the machine is David Cannon.
LinkRube Goldberg's Grand-daughter in the 2014 National winning machine.
After the competition, Jennifer George was clipped into our machine and it ran to zip her zipper.
Link