Rube Goldberg Cream Egg killer

I've seen a lot of Rube Goldbergs in my day, but this one takes the cake: it's a fantastic machine that crushes Cadbury's Cream Eggs that takes a couple minutes to run. Link (Thanks, Marilyn!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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ivan256

You can get them year round here too… But when it’s not between Valentine’s Day and Easter, you’ll only find a small quantity of them on the candy rack at a corner drug store, instead of in 2′ diameter bins in every grocery store and gas station.

Much like Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, and just about everything else made of chocolate, I’m sure the ones you get there taste better than the ones sold here, though. You just can’t make good milk chocolate with pasteurized milk.
Stefan Jones

When I saw the headline my brain momentarily dyslexified it to “Egg Cream Killer.”

Which sounds like a guy who’d stalk 1930s Brooklyn and do in people with chocolate syrup and a seltzer bottle.

“Is he dead?”

“You bet!”
ErikO23

KVH

Man i was just going to post a comment about that.

and now i have that cute little song in my head.
trr

Engineering, not science, and it was constructive, in that it was an attempt to win a contest. As long as the contest had some actual worthwhile prize, I’d say it was constructive, since that certainly *had to be* the most creative entry to smash the Egg.
AnnoyedCapitalist

My first thought when I saw this was “Man, between this and that optical illusion video, viral vids are getting pretty neat!” But no, the effort he put into that and his other Japanese gameshow themed video are clearly the work of insanity and not marketing.
complicity

Note that it’s ‘Creme Egg’ – not ‘Cream Egg’.

Truth in advertising plays a role here; were it advertised as Cream, it would have to contain real cream. Hence the marketing of sound-alike Creme, which is free of such tedious obligations.

This applies elsewhere – in Starbucks franchises across the US, a Vanilla Creme (formerly Vanilla Steamer) is steamed milk with vanilla flavouring. No cream, other than the fake whipped-cream stuff. In the UK Starbucks, the “Vanilla Cream” is a cold frappucino drink. With cream. And you’ll have to ask for your steamed milk some other way.

It’s the kind of artificial distinction of wording that only a professional writer would care about.
skatanic

I was skeptical at first because some of the Rube Goldberg devices on that Japanese show are pretty great, but this is indeed superior. It was so fun to watch and I was thoroughly delighted by the ending *SMASH*, which was much more satisfying than the Japanese show.
historyman68

#3: ew ew ew ew!!!

ew!
arkizzle

Error404

It’s funny, without ever explicitly thinking of it, I would have had a similar assumption about creme eggs being UK & Ireland exclusive.. (or commonwealth at least, I had em in Oz)

I don’t even know if I knew there was Cadbury’s in America, I think assumed it was all Hershy and Reese’s. Then again, maybe I’m making that up.. I probly never gave it a thought.

I want some chocolate.
error404

I thin I am right in saying that the Cadbury’s Creme Egg is a peculiarly British item of confectionary?

So if truth be told, this contraption should be refered to as a Heath Robinson sort of affair.

No big thing, just in the UK we have Heath Robinson wher our Yanke amigos have Rube Goldberg.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath_Robinson
arkizzle

Uh oh!

Someone’s not getting their security deposit back!

Tom? God damnit, are these nail holes? There’s like, 800 of them, all over the apartment! What the hell..? I thought you were going to look for a job today?

..and what’s this sticky shit all over the bottom of this wall
Evil Jim

Wow, that was a neat setup. It’s rare to see them all in one take too except, EXCEPT, they cut away right at the most crucial moment. WTF?
Enochrewt

I wonder if this was possible because they’re replacing their wood paneling soon.
kvh

They employed a lot of the tricks (Rubes?) that are used by the folks on the japanese kids’ show Pythagoras Switch — check a bunch out here, and the rest here.
minTphresh

bravo! now, go clean the garage!
Hunty

another perfectly good cadbury creme egg ruined. :(

why couldn’t it have done something constructive, like made ramen or beat off a dog?
freshfr0mdet0x

If that’s what that was in those videos you linked, Japanese children’s TV is better than ours (though it has admittedly been a number of years since I have watched children’s programming domestically or abroad). Thanks for the links.

And thanks for the post. That is impressive, and these damn things make me proud to be alive.
cephalopod

#6: You made me laugh with that dialogue, but I’m guessing most people here haven’t heard of U-Bet (the chocolate syrup of my childhood).
eatabagel

Cadbury Creme Eggs make me proud to be alive too. It’s a shame that one had to be sacrificed in the name of science.
ivan256

#13…

I don’t know how British they are, but there are zillions of them sold in every possible store in the US for somewhere in the neighborhood of a quarter every March and April.

Even when I was a kid, they were too sweet to eat more than partially.
error404

@ IVAN256

#16

How very odd, I was absolutely sutre that the humble creme egg was only in Britian and the Republic Of Ireland.

Here they are not an Easter treat but are used year round.

Thanks for the correction BTW.