February 16, 2005

Contact:

Amy Vineyard
Adventure Science Center
avineyard@adventuresci.com
615-401-5059

Christi Williams
Seigenthaler Public Relations
christi@seig-pr.com
615-327-7999

Nashville, TN - Man and machine will join forces at Adventure Science Center on Saturday, March 19, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., for the annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest™ during which Tennessee High School students will compete for a patent on a fanciful but functional machine of their own invention.

The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest is named for the Pulitzer Prize-winning artist whose inventions satirized new technologies. Rube's drawings depict absurdly-connected machines functioning in extremely complex and roundabout ways to produce a simple end result.

The competition, sponsored by First Tennessee Bank, is a highlight of the Center's Young Inventors Days, which will be held March 19 and 20. Teams of students from area high schools will vie with one another to create Rube Goldberg-inspired machines that require at least 20 steps to complete the simple task of replacing two flashlight batteries, and then turning the flashlight on.

"This competition lures students away from conventional problem-solving methods and challenges them to explore their imaginations by creating a convoluted and complex machine to do a very simple task," said Damon Moore, Adventure Science Center Facilities/Exhibits Technician. "The Rube Goldberg method may not be the most practical, but it certainly is one of the most entertaining, exciting and unusual ways to explore the limits of invention. By spending hours tuning and tweaking their machines, our future engineers become aware of the need for simplicity."

The winning Rube Goldberg team receives a traveling trophy; a trip to Wisconsin to compete in the National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest; memberships to Adventure Science Center for each team member; and services to secure a patent on some aspect of their machine from Waddey & Patterson, P.C., a full-service intellectual property law firm in Nashville that handles patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret and domain-related matters for clients.

Waddey & Patterson is sponsor of Adventure Science Center's "daVinci Days", held January through March. The Science Center focuses on six concept areas throughout the year, and this celebration of creativity and invention will be held through the first quarter of 2005.

Young Inventors Days will also feature activities that give visitors the chance to create amazing inventions. Patrons who visit the Center from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 19, and from 1 to 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 20, can visit numerous invention and creativity activity stations that offer opportunities to create robots, musical instruments and original works of art. Visitors on Saturday also get to pick their favorite Rube Goldberg machine for a "People's Choice Award."