Rube Goldberg Machine
(or, in the UK: Heath Robinson Contraption)
A Rube Goldberg Machine refers to system that is overly complex in its approach to solving a simple problem. Basically, it is a design filled with chain-reactions and this-leads-to-that-leads-to-another-thing in excessivity; anyone who has filed an application for “good” life insurance has been through the paperwork version, and cartoonists — i.e., Rube Goldberg and Heath Robinson — made the idea humorous. (See illustration above.)
I’ve always heard the term used to describe overly complex sets of bureaucratic rules — why can’t they just make it simple? — but likewise understand the humor that comes with envisioning such ‘machines’. At the beginning of the movie Honey, I Shrunk The Kids, for example, we are treated to a complex chain-reaction machine in the inventor’s kitchen; mostly it makes a mess, but in theory it works to get the cat fed. Likewise, when cartoon characters go cannoning into one another causing a slide down a ladder by Character 1 to cause Character 2 to go cannoning into Character 3, who then goes flying through the air…
You get the picture.
A n y w a y
Previously unbeknownst to me, I have recently learned that there are actually people who build Rube Goldberg Machines. There are competitions around the concept, and one group of competitors teamed up with the band OK Go to create a music video depicting a long series of complicated chain reactions that ends with the group members getting sploshed.
I found this to be quite entertaining. Give it a watch…
…and then tell me:
Have you ever heard of a Rube Goldberg Machine? Have you seen one in action?
Perhaps you are aware of a similar and/or ‘scientific’ invention that is equally entertaining?
Do tell. I’d love to hear!
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For this year’s A-to-Z Challenge, I am asking 26 questions — one for each letter of the alphabet — with the goal of getting to know my readers a little bit better.
While this post is a little different than the others so far, the same idea applies.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
No I hadn’t but thanks for giving me five minutes of entertainment!
Isn’t that a fun video? 🙂
Hahhaa
What a fun video…i find these machines genius…so much science and principles to be applied here. I saw in museums. Find them quite fun
Dropping by from a to z http://afshan-shaik.blogspot.com/
Oh, I think it would be fun to see one in a museum!
You’re right: So many scientific principles applied!
My high school physics teacher thought it would be fun to get us to build them. Nothing really complicated, well, on paper but we had fun with it even though some of my classmates could have cared less about the conservation of momentum. Great project for team building and dragged some pretty interesting and imaginative concepts out of the class wallflowers. I can’t remember what we built ours to do… but I do remember it failing at some point.
I think most of them must fail at some point! *laugh*
Very cool that you got to build one though. I didn’t do anything so interesting in physics class.
never heard of such a thing, but i am aware of the concept of overly complicated procedures to get a simple thing done.
As for that video – SUCH PRECISION! and the pause in the music to have those glasses play a tune… perfection.
I cant imagine how long it must have taken (and how many pianos / tvs and what not they had to go through) in order to reach this final version of it!
Timing is everything! (and angles, and speed, and weight… and…)
I thought you might appreciate the silverware on glasses moment! 🙂
That’s really neat to see how everything has to be set up just right for it to work. Fun video! 🙂
Isn’t it?
At one point you can see all the smashed TV’s behind one of the band members (almost a dozen of them in view), which gives a pretty good idea of how many “takes” it took to get it right!
I think that such machines are created by people who want to get a wow effect or those who have absolutely nothing to do.
There are competitions now for building them. I think it would be a fun project, but not a practical one. 🙂