Rube Goldberg machine

A Rube Goldberg machine is a deliberately complex contraption in which a series of devices that perform simple tasks are linked together to produce a domino effect in which activating one device triggers the next device in the sequence. The expression is named after American cartoonist and inventor of such contraptions, Rube Goldberg (1883–1970).

Over the years, the expression has expanded to mean any confusing or complicated system. For example, news headlines include "Is Rep. Bill Thomas the Rube Goldberg of Legislative Reform?"^[1] and "Retirement 'insurance' as a Rube Goldberg machine".^[2]

Origin

Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin (1931)

Rube Goldberg's cartoons became well known for depicting complicated devices that performed simple tasks in indirect convoluted ways. The example on the right is Goldberg's "Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin", which was later reprinted in a few book collections, including the postcard book Rube Goldberg's Inventions! and the hardcover Rube Goldberg: Inventions, both compiled by Maynard Frank Wolfe from the Rube Goldberg Archives.^[3] The "Self-Operating Napkin" is activated when soup spoon (A) is raised to mouth, pulling string (B) and thereby jerking ladle (C), which throws cracker (D) past parrot (E). Parrot jumps after cracker and perch (F) tilts, upsetting seeds (G) into pail (H). Extra weight in pail pulls cord (I), which opens and ignites lighter (J), setting off skyrocket (K), which causes sickle (L) to cut string (M), allowing pendulum with attached napkin to swing back and forth, thereby wiping chin.

The term "Rube Goldberg" was being used in print to describe elaborate contraptions by 1928,^[4] and appeared in the Random House Dictionary of the English Language in 1966 meaning "having a fantastically complicated improvised appearance", or "deviously complex and impractical".^[5]

Many of Goldberg's ideas were utilized in movies and TV shows for the comedic effect of creating such rigmarole for such a simple task, such as the breakfast machine on television's 'Pee Wee's Playhouse'. In 'Ernest Goes to Jail', Ernest P. Worrell uses his invention simply to turn his TV on. Other movies such as 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' and 'Diving into the Money Pit' have featured Goldberg's idea.

Similar expressions worldwide

Austria—Franz Gsellmann worked for decades on a machine that he named the Weltmaschine ("world machine"),^[6] having many similarities to a Rube Goldberg machine.
Denmark—called Storm P maskiner ("Storm P machines"), after the Danish inventor and cartoonist Robert Storm Petersen (1882–1949).
France—a similar machine is called usine à gaz, or gas refinery, suggesting a very complicated factory with pipes running everywhere and a risk of explosion. It is now used mainly among programmers to indicate a complicated program, or in journalism to refer to a bewildering law or regulation (cf Stovepipe system).
Germany—such machines are often called Was-passiert-dann-Maschine ("What happens next machine") for the German name of similar devices used by Kermit the Frog in the children's TV show Sesame Street.
United Kingdom—a "Heath Robinson contraption", named after the fantastical comic machinery illustrated by British cartoonist W. Heath Robinson, has a similar meaning but predates the Rube Goldberg machine, originating in the UK in 1912.^[7] Though Heath Robinson's drawings are extremely similar to the example shown and described above, the expression has gained more a sense of a ramshackle solution to a problem that nevertheless works (though with the implication that it might not do so for long, unlike the 'proper' solution), rather than something needlessly complicated, though it shared that sense initially.
India—the humorist and children's author Sukumar Ray, in his nonsense poem "Abol tabol", had a character (Uncle) with a Rube Goldberg-like machine called "Uncle's contraption"(khuror kol). This word is used colloquially in Bengali to mean a complicated and useless object.
Japan—"Pythagorean devices" or "Pythagoras switch". PythagoraSwitch (ピタゴラスイッチ, "Pitagora Suicchi") is the name of a TV show featuring such devices. Another related genre is the Japanese art of chindōgu, which involves inventions that are hypothetically useful but of limited actual utility.
Spain—devices akin to Goldberg's machines are known as Inventos del TBO (tebeo), named after those that several cartoonists (Nit, Tínez, Marino Benejam, Frances Tur and finally Ramón Sabatés) made up and drew for a section in the TBO magazine, allegedly designed by some "Professor Franz" from Copenhagen.
Turkey—such devices are known as Zihni Sinir Projeleri, allegedly invented by a certain Prof. Zihni Sinir ("Crabby Mind"), a curious scientist character created by İrfan Sayar in 1977 for the cartoon magazine Gırgır. The cartoonist later went on to open a studio selling actual working implementations of his designs.

Professional artists

W. Heath Robinson was an English cartoonist and illustrator best known for drawings of ludicrously complex machines for achieving simple objectives.
Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Swiss artists known for their art installation movie Der Lauf der Dinge (The Way Things Go, 1987). It documents a 30-minute-long causal chain assembled of everyday objects, resembling a Rube Goldberg machine.
Tim Hawkinson has made several art pieces that contain complicated apparatuses that are generally used to make abstract art or music. Many of them are centered on the randomness of other devices (such as a slot machine) and are dependent on them to create some menial effect.

Competitions

Rube Goldberg machine designers participating in a competition in New Mexico.

In early 1987, Purdue University in Indiana started the annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, organized by the Phi Chapter of Theta Tau, a national engineering fraternity. In 2009, the Epsilon Chapter of Theta Tau established a similar annual contest at the University of California, Berkeley.

Since around 1997, the kinetic artist Arthur Ganson has been the emcee of the annual "Friday After Thanksgiving" (FAT) competition sponsored by the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Teams of contestants construct elaborate Rube Goldberg style chain-reaction machines on tables arranged around a large gymnasium. Each apparatus is linked by a string to its predecessor and successor machine. The initial string is ceremonially pulled, and the ensuing events are videotaped in closeup, and simultaneously projected on large screens for viewing by the live audience. After the entire cascade of events has finished, prizes are then awarded in various categories and age levels. Videos from several previous years' contests are view-able on the MIT Museum website.^[8]

The Chain Reaction Contraption Contest is an annual event hosted at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, PA where high school teams each build a Rube Goldberg machine to complete some simple task (which changes from year to year) in 20 steps or more (with some additional constraints on size, timing, safety, etc.).

On the TV show Food Network Challenge, competitors in 2011 were once required to create a Rube Goldberg machine out of sugar.^[9]

An event called Mission Possible in Science Olympiad involves students building a Rube Goldberg-like device to perform a certain series of tasks.

References

↑ Economist's View: Is Rep. Bill Thomas the Rube Goldberg of Legislative Reform?. Economistsview.typepad.com (2005-06-06). Retrieved on 2011-05-06.
↑ Social Security's Progressive Paradox – Reason Magazine. Reason.com (2005-05-02). Retrieved on 2011-05-06.
↑ Wolfe, Maynard Frank (2000). Rube Goldberg: Inventions. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684867249.
↑ Atkinson, J. Brooks (10 February 1928). "THE PLAY; "Rain or Shine," Joe Cook". New York Times. p. 26. He then introduces the Fuller Construction Orchestra, which is one of those Rube Goldberg crazy mechanical elaborations for passing a modest musical impulse from a buzz. |access-date= requires |url= (help)
↑ Marzio, Peter C. (1973). Rube Goldberg: His Life and Work. Harper and Row. p. 118. ISBN 0060128305.
↑ Die Weltmaschine des Franz Gsellmann. Weltmaschine.at (2010-12-18). Retrieved on 2011-05-06.
↑ History – Historic Figures: William Heath Robinson (1872–1944). BBC. Retrieved on 2011-05-06.
↑ "Friday After Thanksgiving: Chain Reaction". MIT Museum [website]. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
↑ "Food Network Challenge: Sugar Inventions". Retrieved 2015-09-18.

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