What is a Rube Goldbrg?

Answer 1

Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist.

But he was famous for drawing massive, convoluted machines that take a dozen steps to perform a very simple task.

For this reason, machines of this kind are often call 'Rube Goldberg machines' to this day. Purdue University in Indiana holds a national contest to develop the best Rube Goldberg machine each year, as a matter of fact.

Here's a link to the official Rube Goldberg site... the flash intro shows a good example of such a machine:

http://www.rubegoldberg.com/

I should say that all this holds true in America... other countries had similar cartoonists, and so they use their own names for the same thing: In Britain, they're often called Heath Robinson contraptions, in Denmark, Storm P maskiner, and so on and so on.

Answer 2

Rube Goldberg machines:
A Rube Goldberg machine or device is any exceedingly complex apparatus that performs a very simple task in a very indirect and convoluted way. Rube devised such pataphysical devices. A Rube Goldberg machine usually has at least ten steps. The best examples of his machines have an anticipation factor: the fact that something so wacky is happening can only be topped by it happening in a suspenseful manner. One story about Rube Goldberg holds that, while sleep-walking barefoot in a cactus field, he screamed out an idea about a self-operating napkin.

The term also applies as a classification for a generally over-complicated apparatus or software. It first appeared in Webster's Third New International Dictionary with the definition, "accomplishing by extremely complex roundabout means what actually or seemingly could be done simply."

In the United Kingdom, such a device is known as a Heath Robinson contraption, named after the British cartoonist who also drew fantastic comic machinery, which in his case were tended by bespectacled men in overalls. See also Roland Emett, who created many actual working machines of this type, such as the Breakfast Machine in the film Pee-wee's Big Adventure.

In Denmark, they are called Storm P maskiner, after the Danish cartoonist Robert Storm Petersen.


Rube Goldberg machines are often used by "Tom" in the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons.

Answer 3

Fermi is correct. A good example of a Goldburg machine would be the device built in the childrens game Mousetrap! Another would be the Mechanisims game players are asked to complete in the Computer game Incredible Machines.