The first challenges were purely mechanical traps and contraptions, using a universal set of materials pre-determined by Flowers, and the students loved it.
The solar-powered contraptions use an interactive sensor that determines which musical track is played based on a person's proximity to the speakers and the individual's height.
Mark -- nerdy, pudgy, harried -- is shown rigging up their car, first with a sail, then a microwave contraption using huge satellite dishes, and finally a helium tank with a bulbous hose.
While the same rules apply to this brewer as any other cold brew contraption (use a coarse grind, wait about 12 hours, clean all parts in contact with the grinds after each use) it's delivered in a relatively attractive, lightweight package.
It happened while the canapé chef was attempting to explain a contraption used to snap the dome off an egg.
Susan Carnell, a research psychologist at Columbia who gave the lecture on "Twilight," did manage to slip some real science into her talk, including references to a recent study of the mating behavior of male topi antelopes and a slide depicting the vagina photoplethysmograph, a contraption used to measure female arousal.
Now, computer chip-maker Intel is taking on the musicians and Rube Goldbergs of the world in one fell swoop with a robotic orchestra known as the "Intel Industrial Control in Concert". Originally debuted at the 2011 Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, the contraption uses 2,300 rubber balls launched by 36 paint ball hoppers to play a 2,372 note song.
Eggs are then judged for soundness after impact, design and creativity of the contraption used for the egg.
Unveiled last week by the Austrian design and innovation firm L I V I N, the contraption uses the roots of common mushrooms to degrade plastic placed within their agar (the fungi's nutrient base), then allows humans to harvest and consume the byproduct.
