Rube Goldberg contest set for this weekend

University students from around the nation will be at Purdue University this weekend for the 19th annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.

The competition pays homage to late cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who specialized in drawing extremely complex machines that performed very simple tasks. This year's challenge is to build a mechanism that will individually cut or shred five sheets of 20-pound, 8-by-11-inch paper.

About eight university teams are expected to participate in the competition, which is free and open to the public. The Saturday event will be held at the Purdue Armory in West Lafayette, Ind., beginning at 10 a.m.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International