No idea how this came to be, but UW-Stout may be poised to become a Rube Goldberg powerhouse. Just last Saturday, their Rube Goldberg team one first place in the national collegiate Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, beating out 12 other teams that also battled their way to the national contest through various regional competitions. And this is the first year they’ve competed.  The university also hosts a regional qualifier for the high school version of the competition.

UW-Stout’s Egyptian-themed design topped a medieval-themed machine by runner-up and defending champion St. Olaf College of Northfield, Minn. Third place went to Penn State, which had an Indiana Jones-themed machine. In case you don’t know, Rube Goldberg is an annual competition in which students create a complex machine to solve a simple problem or perform a simple task. This year, machines were required to dispense the proper amount of hand sanitizer into a hand after at least 20 steps. UW-Stout’s machine had 120 steps, including pop-up obelisks, a row of gods whose eyes lit up, a boat that floated on the Nile River, a sphinx and catapults. It told the story of events leading up to the burial of King Tut, which, as you know, is a chapter of history steeped in hand sanitizer. Watch a video of the final competition.

The St. Olaf machine had 240 steps. But they lost because Stout rocked their 120 steps So. Dang. Hard.

“The judges were star struck. They had a look of astonishment after they saw our machine,” co-captain Andrew Behnke said. Modesty was not among the 120 steps. First place at this thing gets you $1,000. And a big ol' trophy. Nice job, Team Stout!