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The Complicated Way to Turn on a Flashlight

Posted by timothy on from the complicationism dept.

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."

6 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. mirrors, including .mov by winkydink · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  2. Movie on front page of slashdot! by random_culchie · · Score: 5, Informative

    Heres a link just in case. Mirror

  3. Re:first linked slashdotted already by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  4. Re:first linked slashdotted already by kidgenius · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is a Rube Goldberg machine. That is the point. To make something overly complex to do something simple. Here's some more info

  5. the complicated way is simpler... by jpellino · · Score: 4, Informative

    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."
  6. the ENTIRE video clip by krunk4ever · · Score: 4, Informative

    i found this as i was poking at the site:
    http://news.uns.purdue.edu/mov/2005/rube05localwin ner.mov

    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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