By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
The Rube Goldberg Institute says it’s thrilled to have Crest + Oral B as sponsors for the 2024 Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.
The involvement of Crest in the annual challenge truly is a special event for the Institute. This will be the 35th anniversary of the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest (RGMC), which is marking the occasion by returning to its very first task from 1988, “Put Toothpaste on a Toothbrush.” (see photo at top)
The partnership was brokered by Rube Goldberg’s exclusive licensing and partnership agency, Brand Central.
The RGI says teaming up with two of the most recognizable brands in oral health care to encourage students to use their creativity to help solve everyday challenges is the perfect way to mark that important anniversary.
In parallel, the challenge will also educate students on the importance of critical oral health practices, such as brushing your teeth—a key component of Crest & Oral-B’s #ClosingAmericasSmileGap initiative that was launched in 2021 to address the painful reality that many kids in underserved communities don’t have access to the oral care they need.
“I use Crest. My parents used Crest. And my grandparents used Crest. So, this year’s RGMC task sponsor is literally Rube approved!” says Jennifer George, Rube’s granddaughter and the Director of the Rube Goldberg Institute (RGI). “We’re so excited to celebrate 35 years of Rube Goldberg Machine Contests with Crest and Oral-B as our sponsors.
“Both sponsors align with our core mission: equity and access in teaching our kids to think, not just about problem-solving but also about taking care of their teeth,” George added. “The institute was founded on the idea that every young person deserves a seat at the table when it comes to STEM and art education. All you need is a pile of junk and a great imagination to build an award-winning RGM. Every year, we see kids from Title 1 schools in underserved communities compete side-by-side with their private school counterparts. Here, they meet on a level playing field, probably for the first time ever.”
Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was a Pulitzer-Prize-winning cartoonist best known for his comical chain reaction invention cartoons. For 60+ years his work was published daily in hundreds of newspapers and magazines.
The popularity of his absurdly complex invention drawings made him a cultural icon, an adjective in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and now a searchable hashtag with billions of posts for #rubegoldberg. In 1988 the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest started as a small college-level event and is now an international competition for students of all ages.
For Crest, the contest is a great way to put a bright, white smile on people’s faces.
“We, at Crest and Oral-B, remain committed to advancing oral health innovation in every possible way, so our partnership with The Rube Goldberg Institute was an obvious choice,” said Sujay Wasan, Senior Vice President, NA Oral Care. “Connecting with students from across the nation and witnessing their inventive approaches to getting toothpaste onto a toothbrush, reinforces the significant role that innovation can play in broadening oral health education and access, which are core principles for Crest and Oral-B.”
So, how does the contest work?
First, the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest® challenges student teams to build the most overly complicated machine that solves a simple annual task.
This year’s task is to PUT TOOTHPASTE ON A TOOTHBRUSH, just as the Rube Goldberg cartoon showed decades ago.
There are four divisions: Apprentice (lower school), Division I (middle school), Division II (high school), and Division III (college). Each division has its own rules that get progressively harder as the kids get older.
Live regional contests are held across the US from January through March 2024, and winning teams and their machines are invited to compete at National Finals, held at Purdue University on April 6. Winners of the National Competition receive trophies, prize money, and garner press attention across all media platforms. The contests are free, and details can be found at rubegoldberg.org.
Regular readers of TLL will know we’re huge fans of Rube Goldberg machines, so we’ll be sure to bring you the winners in April, along with some videos of the competitor’s crazy inventions.