The 1995 engineering task involved designing a machine to pick up Styrofoam "noodles" and put them into a positive or negative scoring area before the buzzer sounded. This year's game, more than last year's, required teams to think in terms of strategy, as well as mechanics.


One giant goose egg in the middle of the playing field could be moved into a positive scoring area to make noodles count negative or into a negative scoring area to make noodles count positive. Because each team had a positive and negative scoring area, defense was just as important as offense. The team with the most points at the end of each two-minute round won, until knocked out of the double-elimination tournament.


The game was played in a 24-foot, octagon-shaped arena. Each team had a 24-by-72-inch positive scoring area opposite a negative scoring area.


Four teams competed in each round, with each team assigned a home base. At the end of each round, the position of the noodles (positive and negative) determined the total points. But watch out for the giant goose egg, which made positive noodles negative and negative noodles positive!


Machines could pick up, push, and steal noodles or the goose egg from other teams, block opponents from scoring, and do anything else that didn't damage the playing field or another machine.