North Dakota 4-H Engineering Design Challenge

Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist who was best known for the wacky inventions that appeared in his comics. His cartoons appeared in newspapers for more than 50 years.

A RG is an overly complex contraption that does a simple task. The RG contraption uses everyday items in a series of chain-reaction steps that accomplish a task.  The 4-H Engineering and Design Contest allows youth to use physics, engineering, humor, and storytelling. Teams are encouraged to create a theme for their contraption and incorporate their theme in the contraption.

The goal of the contest is to encourage critical thinking, creativity, innovation, and problem solving in a non-traditional learning even and to have FUN in the process. Youth who have completed third through twelfth grades can compete in the challenge. Youth will use their STEM knowledge and skills to solve problems, make a plan, and design a solution.

Teams that build a contraption and complete the record keeping journal and a poster summarizing their work can compete or display their work at their county fair. Any team can participate in the state fair contest; teams do not have to win a county contest to enter the state fair challenge.