Rube Goldberg machine

Looks like something designed by a committee of government bureaucrats.

Do you suffer from delusions-of-reference? Everything is not about the gov. or politiks. Try increasing your meds.

Bob

Oh come on now. I hardly know of and engineer worth his salt that would not exchange a hefty price to participate in such a grand farce. Also that was a good Rube Goldberg well done, it s as welcome as a rich Auntie.

Just think of the excitement one of those could cause if the blessed designers used Anvils instead of Golf Balls. The physics would be spectacular.

You mean to tell me you never have been interested in this kind of engineering fun?

My personal idea of fun is blowing things up, actually.....

Hi Bob, I guess you never tried having an intelligent conversation with with a government bureaucrat before, otherwise you'll know exactly what I mean.

I've failed miserably at not answering this one....a bureaucracy is a natural 'Ruby' (Thats what we called them in collage). to think otherwise is to deny the physical order of the universe.

If you havn't seen this one it's worth checking out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFTduBCb7Eo

The claim is that no camera tricks were used.

how can you say that? especially on an engineering site, it's not possible to move those heavy wheels in that direction just by touching them.

The wheels have some weight added to make them unballanced so they can move upwards. An accurate balance can be broken with very small forces.

I thought engineers were supposed to be open to new ideas - especially ideas that use the laws of physics to produce new and unexpected results. Isn't that part of the definition of an elegant design - a complex function resulting from a simple principle? Expand your mind!

Rube Goldberg and his ilk show the antithesis of elegant design. These are complex (because there are so many and varied) functions causing a simple result.

Engineers love these mechanisms because they do utilize and demonstrate many engineering principles and simple machines in sequential (and occasionally parallel) form. They also represent Cause-and-Effect relationships, which are near and dear to an Engineer's heart. They also, as noted previously, should demonstrate a degree of humor, to be truly Goldbergesque.

Elegant design can be visually and mechanically simple OR complex. Elegant design makes the best use of engineering principles in a way that optimizes efficiency and minimizes waste, redundancy, and overkill. Elegant design is rarely humorous, but can make one smile at its marvelousness. Elegant design is graceful and harmonious, often a blending of art and engineering. Instead of "form follows function" or "function follows form", in an Elegant Design form and function work together in a symbiotic relationship to yield a result which is greater than the sum of its individual parts.

OK, now pass me another beer! <buurrrrrrp!>

Things are not always as they seem Mr. Guest!

In my experience, good engineers do not say, "That is impossible" but ask "How did they do that!"

My high school physics teacher once bet the Vice-Principal (his friend) a steak dinner that he could raise the administrator up off the floor simply by pouring water from a beaker into a funnel attached to a small rubber hose feeding into the air inlet of a small (motorcycle) inner tube laying flat on the floor covered with a board on which he (the VP) stood.

Having only an Education education, the VP had no idea that it was a simple demonstration of the high pressure in a column of water versus a weight distributed over a relatively large surface area (lower pressure). As long as the pressure in the column of water (very low cross-section rubber hose) was greater than the pressure inside the inner tube (pounds of VP per square inches of board) water from the beaker could continue to flow in, expanding the inner tube and raising an astounded VP several inches off the ground.

Yes, Physics is Phun!

It's very nice, but not really Rube Goldberg.

The genius of Rube Goldberg creations (which existed only as cartoons) was that the entire process could be taken in at a glance, usually from a newspaper page. The concatenation of many absurd and very elaborate operations operating in a surprising way to achieve a trivial result made it funny.

This video cries out for judicious editing. It needs to be speeded up and shortened, so that the experience is more unitary. It demonstrates cleverness; it should show more wackiness.

Hmmm, "show more wackiness"? How much wackiness do you need?

I thought these were pretty "wacky":

CD cases stacked, and falling over, like dominoes

Slinky going down steps,

Umbrella opening, launching a ball,

A dart launcher hitting its mark, making the dart board swing,

A polo mallet causing a Rubik's Cube to take a bungee jump,

A large boot swinging to kick a ball,

Chess pieces moving to Checkmate as if by themselves, with the King falling over,

A Chime that plays the Close Encounters theme,

A real curtain opening to show closing credits.

Seems pretty "wacky" to me!

I really enjoyed the video and the U-tube video. Thank you for making them available to us.

"It was a cold and miserable rainy Saturday afternoon and I was bored," svengali

"It was something to do."

I'll guarantee these guys ain't married (at least, not anymore !!)

"...assuming it really completed its entire cycle uninterrupted, i.e., no video editing..."

On the originator's site (an advertisement company) there are few versions of this contraption, one of those uncut, one-shot, video documentation of the sequence.

Click on "-Videos", top-gray strip, and see for yourself.

come to think of it, editing here, can only prove that their sequence is genuine and repeatable enough, to have several shots of - from different angles - to further please the eye, and the intellect.

Great video, very humorous too. Loved it.

A "real Rube Goldbeg" device should be meticulously constructed. Not a taped up, hurry up job, for the sake of getting a video online for whatever purpose.

Now the "LEGO" falling domino displays are a real treat to watch when properly set up for a precision "fall down" with single start to multiple triggers while in progress.

Here's a great link http://www.rubegoldberg.com/

Here is an interesting link about a contest to make a Rube Goldberg Machine. http://www.reliableplant.com/article.asp?articleid=6840 there are additional, related links at the end of the article.

Damn! The 1973-patented tea-stirring machine powered by a Mamod stationary engine and built from Meccano fails to comply...

Who was Rube Goldberg? This video on Rube Goldberg has some interesting fact about Rube Goldberg's life delivered by an animated and cute reporter.