Competition Day Logistics
April 14, 2007, Fay School Harlow Gymnasium

After a full day of training for the teachers in January, and a full two months of planning their Rube Goldberg devices, students, teachers, and friends come together to build their machines and show off what they've accomplished! Teams compete for several awards, including the Grand Champion title. So come one, come all, for the Third Annual Rube Goldberg Machine Design Contest for Middle School Students!

Friday night logistics
  1. Is there is an interest in attending a Friday evening dinner, even without the lecture? If so: coaches of interested teams please RSVP to Chris by March 23 that he can let his catering guy know the numbers.
  2. Chris needs to hear from out-of-town teams regarding transportation to and from hotels for the evening of 4/13 AND the next morning to Fay School so that van drivers can be lined up. He needs final numbers by 3/23, so please write and let him know the pickup location as well as if you need Friday as well as Saturday transportation.
  Both dinner and transportation arrangements can be made for team members and coaches only.

Contest Day Schedule
 9:15am-10:00am: Arrival and registration
 10:00am-1:00pm: Building / dry runs
 1:00pm-1:45pm: Mandatory lunch break in the Reinke Building
 2:00pm-4:00pm: Judging of machines according to random judging order
 4:00pm-4:30pm: Awards presentation
 4:30pm-5:00pm: Clean-up, spectators can view machines

Places to stay
The following is a list of lodging near the Fay School.
 Residence Inn by Mariott, Route 9 Westborough, 508-366-7700
 Sheraton Tara, Route 9 Framingham, 508-879-7200
 Red Roof Inn, Route 9 Southborough, 508-481-3904
 Comfort Inn, Route 9 Westborough, 508-366-0202
 Radisson Inn, Route 20/I-495 Marlborough, 508-480-0015

Contest Day Logistics
Check back here regularly for new information.
Below is some information that will help our contest day go a bit more smoothly and help us avoid back-ups as we register the 20 teams.

• We encourage all of you to take your machines back to your schools. There is an additional educational opportunity here for you and your school beyond the students directly involved in the competition. Please remove all machine parts and discard/recycle refuse prior to leaving for the day.
• Please double-check directions to Fay at http://www.fayschool.org. A parking map is available here.
• As an additional resource on the day of competition, Fay students will be acting as your ambassadors. Each Fay student will host two Rube teams in this capacity. The Fay ambassador is your "go to" person for anything you need during the competition, and will greet you in the morning, introduce themselves, deliver your team to its spot, and be available throughout the day.
• Please read and understand the reminders and rules addendum found on the rules page. Please review the original information packet and be sure you understand all of the rules.
• Please review all questions and answers on the FAQ page.
• At the bottome of the rules page is a parking map with a drop off zone and directions to parking. There will be a person to direct you, but just so there are no logjams when we are all trying to squeeze through that very narrow registration window. Please do not park on the circle where you are dropping kids and materials, but cross back over Main Street to the Bracket House, St. Mark's Church, Town Hall, or Pilgrim Church Parking Lots.
• Kindly complete the team registration form, taking special care to list, clearly, each member of your team. During building, Chris Schoberl will have their names printed on participation certificates in a nice font and on higher quality paper.
• Have all of your required paperwork ready when you approach the registration table. Pick up your t-shirts, move quickly to your building area, deposit your materials, have your captain inventory your tools, and have everyone else move quickly to the rest area to await the starting gun.
• Don your t-shirts as soon as you can to avoid being removed from contest floor. Only participants, judges, MIT student mentors, and coordinators are allowed on the contest floor.
• Water will be in ample supply; please encourage your students to partake.
• Please do feel free to bring snacks and coolers (put your name on it!), especially coffee/tea for the adults! There will be a break area where you can store this stuff and access it during the competition. Please keep all food confined to the break area!
• At lunch, please have kids sit on the floor of the Reinke gym or take their lunch outside. Kindly double check that all areas are cleaned up prior to returning to the Harlow gym for the judging. Chairs at tables are meant for adults (coaches, judges, guests, etc.).
• Please tell your guests or spectators that lunch and the break area are for the competitors only. They are free to eat with you in Reinke, but we expect that they will bring their own lunches. Spectators in the break area may cost their team points. Spectators are allowed on the floor during judging. This does present an additional management challenge which we hope will not detract from the business of the day; we are confident, with your help, it will be a great success and we will decide to keep this part of the day open to spectators.
• Vegetarians will have a veggie option at lunch.
• Do not forget your IRS form and all receipts/documentation for your travel stipend.
• Please have your signed coach statement ready to turn in.
• Please note that your team will not be judged until the complete toolkit has been handed to Chris Schoberl; this is simply a way for Chris to be sure we have all of those tools put away and ready for Rube 4!
• With respect to the tools, there was one item not returned last year by the vast majority of the teams: the screwheads that go into the drills (x2 for each team, flat-head and phillips-head). They are small and easily lost; all but 4 needed to be replaced last year, so please keep your eyes on these!

Tool Return & Materials Recycling
Please do plan on submitting your tools for check out before you leave on Saturday and cleaning up your spots.
The Tool Return Checklist is a sample of what the tool return table monitory will subject you to. Once the contest has ended, your students should carry all of the team's refuse to the dump truck outside the gym entrance. Recycle what you can in the bins set up for this purpose. We will only recycle what we can standardize from year to year, so please do not leave additional items, as they will be discarded. If you feel badly about tossing it, pleae do take it with you.

Sponsored by:           Questions about this website? Email Jesse Marsh. Website last updated 3/15/07.