This past Wednesday, March 7th, 2012, we had the amazing opportunity to travel to the CN Tower for the finale to the Engineering Student Societies Council of Ontario’s (ESSCO) Rube Goldberg Event. This event brought together eleven engineering schools from across the province to create one of the largest Rube Goldberg machines in the world. Each participating school built a segment of the machine which after completing its part, sent a signal off to the next school in the chain. The final school triggered a live section of the machine, set up at the tower by Conestoga College, which hit the switch to light up the entire tower purple.
Eight students from the participating schools, the two of us included, were lucky enough to get a behind the scenes tour of the tower from the head building engineer and engineering manager. On the tour, we went everywhere from the foundation; looking up the hollow core of the tower, to all the way up to the observation decks. Unfortunately, due to the high winds we did not have the opportunity to go to the highest points; but we did get the background story on the creation of the new Edge Walk attraction. It was a very different perspective to see the tower from and we were able to gain some interesting information from an engineering perspective.
Following the tour, we returned to the lobby for the main event that showcased the machines built by each school, ending with the tower being lit up in purple. The machine went off perfectly and the crowd made up of students, engineers from industry, executives from ESSCO and the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, and media were impressed by the creativity and ingenuity shown off by all participants.
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