Building Resilience in Engineering Students: Rube Goldberg Machine Massive Challenge

In this rapidly changing world, universities must innovate in the way they teach and prepare students to face life's challenges. To be successful, people must be agile learners with high resilience and frustration tolerance to recover quickly from adversity. With this in mind, a new educational model based on the development of skills through active and collaborative learning was defined at Tecnologico de Monterrey. This study shows the results of a Rube Goldberg Machine Massive Challenge for first-year engineering students of different programs. The students worked in teams to design a Rube Goldberg machine that could be installed and run in a limited time, meeting specific requirements. Several teams competed simultaneously to achieve the goal while the audience watched and encouraged them. The results suggest that this challenge was an innovative event that helped students improve their tolerance for frustration and resilience. Students enjoyed the challenge and recommended it for future freshmen as a fun learning experience.