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The Complicated Way to Turn on a Flashlight
jangobongo writes "A machine built by the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers employed an outer-space theme and used steps that incorporated a bouncing water balloon, a fireman action figure fleeing a fire and weights attached to a spinning bicycle wheel to win the 18th national Purdue Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. The winning machine told the story of rocket being launched. As the rocket traveled into space, a meteor hit Earth and started a fire. While the mock fire was put out, the rocket turned on the flashlight to shine back down on Earth. A short video clip can be seen here. The contest was filmed by the Game Show Network to be featured on the network's show, 'Games Across America,' at some future date."
1.2Mb .mov
:)
This ought to stress-test the machine.
Here, here, here and here
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Heres a link just in case. Mirror
That's exactly the point of the contest.
Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist from the turn of the century, famous for drawing really fancy complex ridiculous machines to do something simple.
When you see a cartoon where a bowling ball runs down a ramp, knocks a peg into a cup, which spins around a loop, and then pops a balloon, which makes a hamster run in a wheel, which in turn releases a latch which makes an anvil fall on Daffy Duck, that's a direct homage to Rube Goldberg.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
This is a Rube Goldberg machine. That is the point. To make something overly complex to do something simple. Here's some more info
You really have no idea what you're talking about. Rube Goldberg was the name a cartoonist who died in 1970. He was the one who began the trend of creating ridiculous and complex devices for accomplishing mundane tasks, such as a machine the size of a room built for the sole purpose of making a piece of toast.
I've been teaching science for 25 years - the complicated way to turn on a flashlight is apparently to hand someone a bulb, a battery, and a wire and ask them to make it work. It's amazing how many people (kids AND adults) can't do this or do it after many many wrong tries.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
i found this as i was poking at the site:n ner.mov
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/mov/2005/rube05localwi
it seems to be the long version of the machine. it's 1:01 in length and 3.3megs big. since it's not the opening post and probably wont be modded too high, i don't think there should be any bandwidth problems. but if there is, shoot me a email and i'll mirror it.
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