Rube Goldberg Machine

Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin (1931). 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.

A Rube Goldberg machine is a machine intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and overcomplicated fashion. Often, these machines consist of a series of simple devices that are linked together to produce a domino effect, in which each device triggers the next one, and the original goal is achieved only after many steps.

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]

The expression is named after the American cartoonist, Rube Goldberg, whose cartoons often depicted such machines. Since 1988, thousands of students have celebrated Rube’s legacy by creating Rube Goldberg Machines™ in the annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest® run by the heirs of Rube Goldberg.[3]

Origin

Rube Goldberg's cartoons became well known for depicting complicated devices that performed simple tasks in indirect convoluted ways. The cartoon above 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.[4]

The term "Rube Goldberg" was being used in print to describe elaborate contraptions by 1928,[5] 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".[6]

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.

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. This early competition at Purdue was the genesis of the contemporary STEM educational competition, the Official Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.

A Rube Goldberg Machine Contest (RGMC) is an event where students of all ages compete with the machines they have imagined, designed and created in a fun and competitive forum. The competitions encourage teamwork and out-of-the-box problem solving, in a fresh learning environment and level playing field. All you need is a good imagination and a pile of junk![7]

The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest has spawned many unofficial and unlicensed imitators like the Chain Reaction Contraption Contest[8] is an annual event hosted at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the annual "Friday After Thanksgiving" (FAT) competition sponsored by the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts emceed by the kinetic artist Arthur Ganson.[9]

On the TV show Food Network Challenge, competitors in 2011 were once required to create a Rube Goldberg machine out of sugar.[10]

An event called 'Mission Possible'[11] in the Science Olympiad involves students building a Rube Goldberg-like device to perform a certain series of tasks.

Exhibitions

"Rube Goldberg™: The World of Hilarious Invention!" is an experiential and educational children's exhibition which opened at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh on October 13th, 2018 and runs through May of 2019.[12] This new exhibit showcases Pulitzer Prize winning humorist and inventor Rube Goldberg’s iconic contraptions and celebrates his imaginative techniques, humorous storytelling and inventive skills. This exhibit was created by the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh in partnership with the Heirs of Rube Goldberg.

Like Rube Goldberg, visitors can activate and create crazy chain-reaction contraptions that use everyday objects to complete simple tasks in the most overcomplicated, inefficient and hilarious ways possible! The exhibition features several full size working machines based off classic Rube Goldberg illustrations. Featured inventions include, "A Simple Way to Sharpen a Pencil", "An Epic Way to Paint a Picture", and the iconic "Self-Operating Napkin Machine".

An all ages oriented retrospective is currently on view at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, PA, as part of the exhibition's tour throughout the United States.[13] The exhibition, called, "The Art of Rube Goldberg", is the first comprehensive retrospective exhibition of Rube Goldberg's work since the Smithsonian's 1970 celebration of the artist.[14] It explores his varied career from his earliest published works and iconic Rube Goldberg machine invention drawings, to his Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoons, and more.

Upcoming tour dates for "The Art of Rube Goldberg" exhibition:

Past tour dates for "The Art of Rube Goldberg" exhibition include:

See also

References

  1. ↑ Economist's View: Is Rep. Bill Thomas the Rube Goldberg of Legislative Reform?. Economistsview.typepad.com (2005-06-06). Retrieved on 2011-05-06.
  2. ↑ Social Security's Progressive Paradox – Reason Magazine. Reason.com (2005-05-02). Retrieved on 2011-05-06.
  3. ↑ "All About the Rube Goldberg Contest – Rube Goldberg". www.rubegoldberg.com. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
  4. ↑ Wolfe, Maynard Frank (2000). Rube Goldberg: Inventions. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0684867249.
  5. ↑ 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.
  6. ↑ Marzio, Peter C. (1973). Rube Goldberg: His Life and Work. Harper and Row. p. 118. ISBN 0060128305.
  7. ↑ "All About the Rube Goldberg Contest – Rube Goldberg". www.rubegoldberg.com. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
  8. ↑ Chain Reaction Contraption Contest
  9. ↑ "Friday After Thanksgiving: Chain Reaction". MIT Museum [website]. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
  10. ↑ "Food Network Challenge: Sugar Inventions". Retrieved 2015-09-18.
  11. ↑ Mission Possible
  12. ↑ "Rube Goldberg™: The World of Hilarious Invention! Exhibit". pittsburghkids.org. Retrieved 2018-10-14. Text " Children's Museum of Pittsburgh" ignored (help)
  13. ↑ "Exhibitions – Rube Goldberg". www.rubegoldberg.com. Retrieved 2018-10-14.
  14. ↑ Shenker, Israel. "Smithsonian Exhibit Resembles Goldberg Cartoon, Which It Is". Retrieved 2018-10-14.
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