Waiting in line for the Rube Goldberg roller coaster
April 22, 2015 8:05 PM   Subscribe

"Showing up as Rube’s granddaughter, you’re kind of like this strange mascot," she told me. "It’s like being mother to many, many children." What she saw there upset her. "Some of those machines were so spectacularly beautiful, but beautiful in a way that a car is a beautiful machine," George recalled. "The winning machine was basically a glorified marble run," she said, repeating her criticism of Iowa’s machine. "A beautiful, precision marble run. But it was not a Rube Goldberg machine. There was nothing about it that was a Rube Goldberg machine."
posted by sammyo (8 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
"Humor can be a design objective," Chatfield told me. "But, I mean, how do you quantify humor?"

Oh Stereotypical Engineers, never change.

(Really loved this article.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:50 PM on April 22, 2015 [1 favorite]


I love Rube Goldberg machines, as well as marble runs, dominoes and whatever those Pitagora Suichi things are. To my mind they are all the same, but reading the article I recognize they are not.

Harborland in Kobe used to have a great marble run. Pretty much every time I went to Harborland I would spend a good 15-20 minutes just watching it go. Here is a Youtube video of it.

There really should be a resource where you could look up where these kinds of things are located to go see them. They're the kind of things which aren't worth basing a trip on, but if you happen to be nearby are definitely worth checking out.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 9:03 PM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


Wait, Kobe Harborland got rid of that kinetic sculpture? When?

I'd say I'll miss it except I never really visit Kobe anyway, so
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:07 PM on April 22, 2015


Reminds me very, very much of Odyssey of the Mind. Especially the stuff about the contraptions being so rickety that they could break on the way to the competition, and the stuff about parts triggering out of order.
posted by Bugbread at 10:29 PM on April 22, 2015 [2 favorites]


In case there are those who didn't know, the Reuben award for cartooning is named for Mr. Goldberg.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:27 AM on April 23, 2015


Given that it was the FPP pull quote, I read the article to understand Rube's granddaughter's criticism, but nothing more about it is said. Why is she upset by these machines that are "beautiful like a car is beautiful"? Would the OK Go video count as a Rube Goldberg machine for her? I guess I was hoping to get some insight into what she considers the defining features of a Rube Goldberg machine, but her complaint is pretty cryptic.
posted by painquale at 9:45 AM on April 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


Wait, Kobe Harborland got rid of that kinetic sculpture? When?

I don't know if they did. But the last time I saw it was maybe 12 years ago and a lot can change in that much time. For all I know Harborland isn't even there anymore.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 6:33 PM on April 23, 2015


One of these days I'm making a table inspired by this marble maze and I'll totally win the grandparent grandkids want to visit contest.
posted by Mitheral at 5:27 PM on April 24, 2015


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