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A Crazy Cambridge Contraption

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the what-are-weekends-of-fun dept.

lhdentra writes "A few friends and I got bored one weekend and decided to build a contraption. Remember the Honda advert? We think ours is better." This took dedication.

7 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdotted... by brilinux · · Score: 2, Interesting

    But we had to do something like this for my final in my eigth grade physical sciences class ... we got to use all the chemicals and lab tools in the classroom, and it started by rolling a ball. Different groups worked on different parts, and the point was to be able to use physics and chemistry to provide the mechanisms for the machine to work. It was a lot of fun, and actually seemed to do a good job of testing us on our knowledge of the physical sciences.

  2. Re:Got them, can't view them by Buttonius · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Winamp5 does fine (on my XP machine at least).

  3. Re:for the clueless by amembleton · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The wheels' centre of gravity is offset, so it is above the centre of the wheel. This means that as the wheel slowly rotates, its centre of gravity starts to fall whilst the tyre itself appears to climbs uphill.

  4. Never mind the Honda ad... by b00le · · Score: 5, Interesting
    this is the true original.
    The way things go (Der Lauf der Dinge) by Peter Fischli and David Weiss, 1987
    Inside a warehouse, a precarious 70-100 feet long structure has been constructed using various items. When this is set in motion, a chain reaction ensues. Fire, water, law of gravity as well as chemistry determine the life-cycle of objects - of things. It brings about a story concerning cause and effect, mechanism and art, improbability and precision

    - and it lasts 30 minutes. Hypnotic, beautiful
    --
    Science fiction for grown-ups...
    1. Re:Never mind the Honda ad... by shannara256 · · Score: 2, Interesting
      [The way things go (Der Lauf der Dinge)] is the true original.

      Yes it is. It's very well done. I got it for Christmas, and about half of my extended family - maybe a dozen or so people - watched the whole thing in near silence.

      They do, however, cheat a few times. They really like the foam step, because they're able to use it as a checkpoint - get from A to B, stop, set up B to C, restart the foam reaction, film from B to C, and so on. The Honda commercial is very well done because it's brief (some of the steps in The Way Things Go take as long as the entire Honda commercial), it's clear (there aren't any chemical reactions, for example; judge for yourself if that's good or bad), and the whole thing is done in one shot.

      They're both good, just for different reasons.

  5. Better than the honda commercial?? by ramk13 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If they are going to claim it's better then they should at least produce something comparable in quality. The main problem, that someone else mentioned here was the camera work. The they probably had a tracked camera for the honda commercial, not a person frantically running around trying to keep up with the events. Also a lot of the pieces of the system moved too fast. You could barely see a few of the balls that moved from place to place because they were moving fast so the camera moved fast to track with them, which left a nice blur for us to look at. Those things on top of the professional look of the Honda commercial vs the college dorm room look of this setup made the whole thing way disappointing.

    All that said. I'm sure it took a *lot* of time and effort, it was cool to watch. It's just annoying for them to say 'ours is better' just to get more attention. If they had just said, here's a cool rube goldberg contraption, take a look, I wouldn't have been let down at all.

  6. Re:Rube by miner60 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yes he would.

    Myself and about 15 of my friends recently entered one of these contraptions into the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. Purdue University hosts the national contest every year where winners of several different regional events compete to have the best working, most complicated Rube Goldberg machine. This year the task was to remove two old batteries from a flashlight, replace them with new batteries, and turn the flashlight on. Former tasks have been casting a ballot, making a cup of coffee, sharpening a pencil, and many more. There is a minimum of 20 steps to complete the task and the machine has to fit in a 6 ft. cube (I belive). Machines also usually have a theme which their machine is based on. Our particular machine had a theme of Las Vegas with all the various steps involving differet Las Vegas casinos, with the Luxor being our flashlight (a light at the top of the pyramid). The winning machine this year at the Purdue regional was a very impressive work of engineering. Of course, the winners had put 3600 man hours into their machine. I believe their theme was space.

    If you have a chance to participate in the Rube Goldberg contest, I would recommend taking it, because it is a really good experience.