Awesome, whole-house "mousetrap" contraption

This whole-house "mousetrap" contraption proves that opening the curtains in the least efficient way possible is often also the most awesome way possible. Best part of the video: The cellphone call.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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johnny payphone

Too bad they couldn’t get it to work in one go :(
cymk

Out of no where that vid reminds me of the Rube Goldberg contraption that made Pee Wee breakfast in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Weird.
Anonymous

Whats really awesome is the way the camera man instantly zips across the room. One minute he’s standing and the ball is on the other side, the other he is right there beside it. It almost seems like this is a bunch of diferent contraptions filmed at diferent times!
Daemon

Epic. Rube would be immensely pleased.
Anonymous

The checkmate? The cell phone call? Brilliant, hilarious!
Shouldn’t these mad geniuses be doing something else with their time?……. naw.
Anonymous

All that work and no toast?!
Grey Devil

lol that was insane
Patrick Dodds

Beautiful.
Anonymous

awesome rube goldberg machine!
Anonymous

No no no, the best part was the glasses on the kitchen counter playing the theme from Close Encounters!

Ah, what am I saying. It was pretty much all the best part.
asplund

Ah – a domestic version of Fischli and Weiss’s “The Way Things Go,” an amazing industrial art installation of continuous Rube Goldberg causation. Considerably darker in mood and without overt purpose. Loved the suddenly spinning hammer and dancing bows in this film in this one. A clip from Fischli and Weiss:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA0mFjJbNH8

http://www.amazon.com/Way-Things-Go/dp/B00005UW7W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1266610728&sr=8-1
lyd

This so completely rocks. I have never before in my life felt the need to say “ZOMFG”, but I do now. ZOMFG
xzzy

My favorite part was the red ball hitting the hammer and falling into a bucket, while the hammer kicked off the next ball in the chain. Was a pretty neat way to use the momentum to do two things at once.

The chess board wasn’t super exciting, but was pretty original, so he gets points for that too.
Anonymous

Many, many similarities to the Honda Cog commercial, but still very original. Nice work.
Smoobly

I kept waiting for a mouse to be trapped. Or something. Where’s the mouse? Where’s the trap?

Nifty device, though. It was good to finally see the cases for those two naked bows.
AsteriskCGY

Hell yea Ruth Goldburg.