Behold: The world's most complicated Rube Goldberg machine

It may not portray the most accurate representation of science (or history), but this Rube Goldberg machine designed by engineering students at Purdue does tell a compelling story, and, with 244 steps to water a single flower, it does earn the title of World's Most Complicated Rube Goldberg contraption—edging out previous record holders at Michigan's Ferris State University, who'd built a machine with 230 steps.

Video link

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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Dual

Yeah, really poor video: a Rube Goldberg device shown only in tight shots and cross-cuts. Sheeeesh. Pretty much incomprehensible and thus- boring.
EeyoreX

What mostly everyone else said: gorgeous machine, unbearably crappy video.
We want to follow the chain reaction, the cause-and-effect; every cut is a failure. If you want to show simultainious events, then you should use split-screen.
Matt Picasso

I’m sure it’s a fine machine, but it really loses a lot through editing. What’s the point in a RG device if I can’t easily tell how everything is interacting? The cuts often make it seem as though these are unconnected events.
huntsu

Camera work would use a little, well, work.
xzzy

I always thought the defining trait of a goldberg machine was taking a tiny amount of initial momentum and carrying it all the way through the machine until it completes its task at the end.

Maybe the video does a bad job showing what’s going on.. but this just looks like someone flips a switch and a bunch of automatons play through their script in sequence.
- Unmutual
  
  “I always thought the defining trait of a goldberg machine was taking a tiny amount of initial momentum and carrying it all the way through the machine until it completes its task at the end.
  
  Maybe the video does a bad job showing what’s going on.. but this just looks like someone flips a switch and a bunch of automatons play through their script in sequence.
  
  According to wiki a RG machine is “a deliberately over-engineered machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction.”
  
  I’m not sure what the “simple” task this machine is performing is. Supposedly it’s watering a flower, but really what it’s doing is presenting a tongue in cheek crash course through the history of the planet. Kind of a complicated task done in an overly simplistic manner . . . wouldn’t that be the opposite of a rube goldberg machine?
Pliny the Elder

I love Rube Goldberg videos but this sucks. Rule number one is to follow the movement without cutting camera angles so everyone can see it all happened in one take.
tylerkaraszewski

Honda ad and OK Go video are both much, much better.
fubbs

this is awesome. I love how every contraption has a theme that ties in to world history, as opposed to the toasters, bowling balls & hot wheels cars that usually make up these things.

+ The only criticism I accept of something as nonsensical and creative as a goldberg machine is to build a better one.
Unmutual

using electricity is cheating and its boring. If you’re going to accept adding complicated electrical crap into it then really there is no point of setting a world record because the only thing stopping you from adding more steps is growing bored with what is really a pointless project.

If you are adding electricity and crap like that than isn’t pretty much everything a rube goldberg machine? My car is a rube goldberg machine . . . I put my foot on the pedal, it takes me to taco bell, I order a chalupa, a chalupa gets made, later on, poop comes out, it’s really amazing I will get a video up of this later.
Anonymous

Nice but not as nice as this looped lego robotics rube goldberg machine:
http://www.riemurasia.net/rrplayer/rrplayer.swf?file=http://media.riemurasia.net/albumit/m10225/806610815.mp4
Teller

Since no one else is willing to say it: there shouldn’t be any edits.
Anonymous

I love rube contraptions, but im far more of a fan of the purely mechanical ones. Something is lost in the electricity. Though i do think this one would have benefited from better cinematography.

Fun idea using it to diagram the timeline though, not a single simple use but still something different.
Anonymous

Nice theme and some clever movements. I think though that it relies on electrical mechanisms too much. I prefer my RG setups to be mechanically based. Using switches and electric motors a lot is sort of cheating in my opinion.

I’d hate to have to reset this thing though.
Roy Trumbull

My favorite RG machine had a real purpose. I was chief engineer of an AM-FM combination. The AM was in tidelands 40 miles away. The transmitter predated remotely resettable circuit breakers. If one popped you shot half a day going to reset it.
My predecessor took inspiration from Rube Goldberg and made a marvelous invention. Mounted on the face of the transmitter was the mechanism from a Seeberg jukebox. Attached to it was a horizontal wooden bar that it raised and lowered. Clamped to each end of the wooden bar was a vertical welding rod. At the press of a remote button the rods would push a tripped breaker back on. If the breaker was on already it just brushed past it.
Often a new technology will hit the road without the essential accessories. Engineers throw together stopgap kluges that do what needs to be done and a year or two later replace it with what should have been available at the product’s launch.
Rube lives!
g0d5m15t4k3

These guys in the picture sure don’t look Hispanic or have Hispanic names:

“David Cannon , Alex Weaver and Matt Miller (L-R) react to their Purdue Society of Professional Engineers/Society of Professional Hispanic Engineers machine at the Rube Goldberg competition.

Read more: 24th Annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest – Guinness World Records – Popular Mechanics”
- SamSam
  
  You’re missing the slash between the two statements: “Purdue Society of Professional Engineers/Society of Professional Hispanic Engineers.”
  
  Doesn’t sound to me like the engineers need to be Hispanic. They could simply be members of the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers.
- Maggie Koerth-Baker
  
  Neither do my cousin’s kids … and yet. It’s also quite possible this was built by more than three people, not all of whom are pictured.
  
  What’s your point, g0d5m15t4k3?
  - Anonymous
    
    The team was made up of 17 members, only 3 who were hispanic and whose names were not mentioned
squidfood

I’m not sure if it was a “true” Rube Goldberg, but at least some of the drawn ones I’ve seen in the past have used electric fans to push sailboats/etc. Some of RGs do rely on switching on faucets which is also outside power. I think electricity or external power is fine as long as each on switch is triggered by the previous thing (and not by external control sequence).
Senor Schaffer

I was so excited to watch this.

Was.

:(
Unmutual

It’s hard to tell how or even if any of these steps are truly dependant on the previous step, there is so much going on and not much transparency. That’s the problem when you have too much automation . . . yeah I’ve seen fans and that sort of thing incorporated into RG devices (like the one with the car) but it should at least be immediately clear what exactly is going on.

Those types of devices tend to be big sprawling messes as opposed to this thing which is really just a glorified diorama in a neat little rectangular presentation.

Rube Golberg must be spinning in his grave right now . . . powering fan which is blowing a ball bearing towards a hole through which it will drop and hit a switch and out will pop a slice of toast . . .
chgoliz

This is just one of several videos of the machine. On the official Purdue University site for the 2010 Rube Goldberg contest you’ll see that they start with an unedited video showing the full run in real time, followed immediately by the above video. There’s probably more after that, but I didn’t bother to watch any longer.
SedanChair

Actually no camera edits is rule #2.

Rule #1 is that you have to play Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse” in the background:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfDqR4fqIWE
- Anonymous
  
  There is a full un-edited run through on Youtube.
  - eaglescout1984
    
    For me it has to be the aptly named “Breakfast machine” by Danny Elfman from Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.
ackpht

Purdue ME alum here.

Goldberg utilized all sorts of stored energy in his contraptions. This machine is marvelous, though I don’t usually think of the Middle Ages and WWII to be adjacent time periods.

Anyone who disses this effort, show us a better one that you have done.
Anonymous

Here is the unedited version of our machine running:

Purdue’s PSPE Rube Goldberg Machine 2011: World Record Breaking Perfect Run (Unedited)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zD_fcIm_tc