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."

Comments

mirrors, including .mov

[winkydink]

1.2Mb .mov

This ought to stress-test the machine. :)

Here, here, here and here

I read about this on CNN on Saturday

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess CNN is now the place to go for breaking geek news.

Movie on front page of slashdot!

[random_culchie]

Heres a link just in case. Mirror

Honda Commercial

[cgoody]

Anybody remember the Honda commercial like this?

.... A short video clip can be seen here.

[macaulay805]

A short video clip can be seen here.

Not anymore.

Complicated Way

[blatantdog]

So civilians figured out what the US Military does everyday.

*ducks*

[cmacmanus]

You haven't heard the one about how many Purdue Society of Professional Engineers does it take to turn on a flashlight? :P

I can see it now...

[IBeatUpNerds]

Snippet from one of their resumes:

Part of team that won award three years running for devising the most complex and inefficient machine possible.

Oh yeah... HR departments will jump these guys.

you know what I love?

[badmicrophone]

how many Rube Goldbergian machines we use without realizing how much so they are...yeah, that was english.

Take for instance my friend's cell phone, it rings; like, as in ringing. You know, the sound a bell makes.

Well, to me the funny thing is how much processing has to occur to create this ringing sound - all the decompression, digital to analog conversion - how some IC's are monitoring the juice from the battery - all to mimic a simple, age-old bell.

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Check out my Music Video!

A walk down memory lane...

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be difficult to describe all 125 steps, but the items included billiard balls, a boxing glove, a space cowboy, a satellite, a vacuum cleaner and a spaghetti fork.

From volume 2 of the Kama Sutra, I presume.

I see

[Bootle]

The Purdue society of professional engineers won the Purdue contest...

That's almost as bad as having a Vice President's oilcompany winning US oil contracts in Iraq... Oh wait!

Re:first linked slashdotted already

[stratjakt]

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.

Rube Goldberg, the early years

[killermookie]

Might I add one of Rube Goldberg's first attempts?

Not Quite Rube Goldberg