Freerunner Jason Paul and friends got (a presumably large amount of) money from Red Bull to construct a building-scale Rube Goldberg machine that integrated several parkours at various stages of its operation, mixing the improbable action of inanimate objects with the improbable (and breathtakingly dangerous) actions of human lunatics.

Human-Powered Freerunning Machine - with Jason Paul (via IO9)

Akiyuky on YouTube has uploaded a 7 minuted video overview of her or his astounding Lego Ball Contraption, a robotic rube goldberg device in 17 modules, each more fiendishly clever than the last. The accompanying blog (in Japanese) has lots more detail. But honestly, you can just sit agog for seven glorious minutes and soak it all up without having to try and parse out Google Translate's rendition of Akiyuky's explanation.

LEGO TECHNICからくり部屋 (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Etsy's GreenTreeJewelry makes these whimsical, rube goldbergian light-switch covers that let you toggle the switch by means of a delightfully superfluous mechanism: "This light switch cover is completely functional. Levered handle toggles back and forth, turning on and off light switch."

Toggle Light Switch Plate (via Red Ferret)

Purdue's Society of Professional Engineers set a new record for rubegoldbergery with a 300-step balloon-inflater/popper. As magnificent as the machine itself is, the best part of this video is unquestionably the roar of the crowd.

WEST LAFYETTE, Ind., USA--The Purdue Society of Professional Engineers team smashed its own world record for largest Rube Goldberg machine with a 300-step behemoth that flawlessly accomplished the simple task of blowing up and popping a balloon - setting the new world record for the Largest functional Rube Goldberg machine, according to World Records Academy.

Largest Rube Goldberg Machine: Purdue team set new world record (2012) (via Neatorama)

Gramturismo sez, "A maker in Scotland has created an elaborate, steampunk style hand cranked corkscrew." It's quite an amazing gadget -- talk about thoroughly solving a problem!

Rob Higgs (Thanks, gramturismo!)

Canada's 2D Photography created this amazing Rube Goldberg device out of photography stuff of all descriptions, and made the whole thing so witty and fun that I watched it twice in a row.

Rube Goldberg

(via Make)