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Rube Goldberg photobooth

David Pescovitz at 3:08 pm Mon, Apr 11, 2011

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Alex Crawford and Austin Nelson, graduate students at Pratt, built a "Rube Goldberg Photobooth" for their Multimedia Installation class project. From Architizer:

We had both always wanted to build a Rube Goldberg machine but never had a good reason to and we could also never find anyone else interested in spending a lot of time and energy building a machine that is basically pointless. This was the perfect opportunity! We spent about 30 hours building it and the result is a process that lasts about 30 seconds. Time well spent, I believe.”
"Rube Goldberg Photobooth" (Thanks, Mathias Crawford!)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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  • AngelsOnYrBody

    I’m confused. A picture being taken is what starts it? What exactly is that tennis ball triggering at the end of the process?

    • PacoBell

      Seems to be a DSLR on a tripod.

      • AngelsOnYrBody

        Wow. Right. Because a photo booth takes a series of photos, one after the other. Got it.

    • LeSinge

      Actually, I think it’s a little confusing since it apparently takes a Polaroid at the beginning but they act like that’s the picture that got taken at the end (since there’s no shot of them posing above the Polaroid).

      And by Polaroid I mean whatever similar Fuji tech they’re using.

  • arbitraryaardvark

    working fine now, hmm.

  • Anonymous

    Isn’t it tangentially to the point of a rube goldberg machine for there to be a reason to make one?

    In fact, isn’t the idea of a rube goldberg machine antithetical to the idea of needing to get something done?

  • Anonymous

    Disappointed at the multiple takes. A true chain reaction looks so much better that way.

  • JustaddH3o

    What’s the point of a rube goldberg video that has a bunch of cuts in it……………..

  • Anonymous

    All you people complaining need to calm your tits.

    This was cool and creative. I enjoyed watching it! :) Good job, guys!

  • burritoflats

    I’d like to lodge an unofficial complaint on behalf of the family of Rube Goldberg and the Rube Goldberg Trust in protest of the over-use and mis-use of the phrase “Rube Goldberg-like”

    Things that knock over other things in an unusual series are not always Rube Goldberg-inspired. Rube Goldberg was an artist and a visual inventor. To apply his name to things like this is a bit of an insult to his comic creations. This post is completely un-Rube Goldberg-like. Thanks!

  • Anonymous

    There will be no calming of my tits! Editing a Rube Goldberg machine is like a magician telling the audience to close their eyes while performing a trick and then opening them to see the result.

  • arbitraryaardvark

    there’s a glitch where on the main blog the video that shows is the yuri garagin one, although once you click it and get to the post itself it changes to the goldberg device. maybe it’s just my new browser.
    http://www.rube-goldberg.com/