Gizmo Gladiators : Looks Finish 2nd-Best in Caltech Design Derby

Seth LaForge learned Thursday that pretty doesn’t always win--at least not at Caltech.

The 21-year-old senior won a token prize for the best-looking device in the internationally renowned science school’s Engineering Design Contest. But his contraption came up just short in the main competition--a no-holds-barred battle to see whose invention could drop the most golf balls through a drain.

In this nerd version of “American Gladiators,” students control what are essentially homemade toy cars via joysticks. To win, your device must scoop up golf balls and ferry them into the drain faster than anyone else’s. But, as in other sports, the best defense is a good offense--so you must also ram, trap or block your enemy by any means necessary.

LaForge’s device, tricked out with a flashing light display a la the sports car in the TV show “Knight Rider,” placed second, falling to fellow senior Eric Jang’s project. But LaForge’s day wasn’t a total loss. “It’s really a rush just slamming someone into a wall,” he said, sounding more like a linebacker than a computer science major.

As has been a Caltech tradition for 12 years, 25 students this semester enrolled in Erik Antonsson’s mechanical engineering seminar. They were each presented with the same bag of bric-a-brac: pieces of fiberglass, Venetian blinds, electric motors, rubber bands. Their assignment: Build a device for the competition, a series of double-elimination rounds among the best and the brightest designers at the powerhouse school.

Students spend hundreds of hours building and testing prototypes before the match. The winner gets a trophy adorned with a giant gear.

“The competitive aspects are important and valuable, because that’s how the real world is,” Antonsson said moments before the match began in the school’s Beckman Auditorium. “The real world, like it or not, is competitive.”

The crowd of cheering students savored the competition Thursday afternoon. The arena was two tables on stage covered with golf balls. Moments after the school’s glee club sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the battle began.

The gizmos resembled soapbox racers built by Mad Max. Some were intimidating--Tyson Grant submitted a black behemoth of metal and rubber, with a gaping toothy maw that clamped down on golf balls and opponents alike.

Others were more whimsical--Gerrit Kirkwood sat a pink stuffed bunny in the driver’s seat of his car. But it was a ferocious device, flipping an opposing purple gizmo on its back and then dumping golf balls down the drain.

The students’ adrenaline was pumping.

“This is like my crowning moment as an engineer,” cried David Zito, a 21-year-old senior with a shaved head covered by a hooded sweatshirt. “For me this is . . . about being creative--the part I like about being a mechanical engineer.”

He paused to let out a whoop, then admitted: “I’m not your typical nerd.”

Kirkwood’s bunnymobile was disabled by LaForge, whose car featured a detachable wedge that he rammed under opponents’ prows, paralyzing them.

Finally the gangly LaForge faced off against Jang.

Jang’s enormous box-like device had demolished several competitors, ramming them into the sides of the table and pinning them there, where they couldn’t scoop up balls.

The cool Jang made quick work of LaForge. LaForge’s wedge failed to stop Jang’s gizmo, which barreled over the smaller, if flashier, car and pinned it to the wall.

Jang pounded his chest Rocky-style and hoisted a good-luck teddy bear above his head before accepting the trophy. He was a gracious winner, saying of LaForge: “His machine’s awesome.”

But, when asked what he was going to do now that he had won, Jang’s reply was all Caltech:

“I have three homework sets due tomorrow.”