Comments on: cause and effect contraptions

cause and effect contraptions

madamjujujive — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 22:04:14 -0800

Incredible Machine 01 - clever Japanese Rube Goldberg type devices in action. Film clip, annoying soundtrack alert. (via digg)

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 22:07:52 -0800

- eeek - wrong link posted, damn - here is the - duh.

By: phyrewerx

phyrewerx — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 22:28:40 -0800

Very Cool.

By: provolot

provolot — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 22:44:38 -0800

Some are ingenious, especially the one with the multiple balls. Here's Incredible Machine 02.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:04:42 -0800

Wow. Some of those are not only diabolically ingenious and incredibly accurate, but improbable and even unlikely. I wish youtube's video streams were better quality, it's hard to tell what's going on in some of the faster actions.

By: squarehead

squarehead — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:27:04 -0800

So what does "pitagorasuicchi" mean? Incredible machine, I'm guessing, perhaps?

By: squarehead

squarehead — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:32:03 -0800

Since it's katakana, I'm thinking it's loan words. The best I can come up with is something having to do with Pythagoras. Which makes some kind of sense.

By: donkeymon

donkeymon — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:47:28 -0800

It's the name of a children's television program here in Japan. No telling what it's actually supposed to mean though. Here's the show's homepage.

By: Heywood Mogroot

Heywood Mogroot — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 23:59:13 -0800

The kids at Keio certainly have a lot of free time... heh, Gilgamesh Night ... Pythagora Switch ... I see a pattern here... Wikipedia.ja has an article on this ... it's an NHK science show oriented towards kids.

By: the duck by the oboe

the duck by the oboe — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 01:22:17 -0800

I was in Tokyo in recently and I saw a show on TV which was based around (adult) competitors building contraptions like this. Some of them were wildly complex, taking 3-4 minutes to run their course. Any idea what the show was?

By: neckro23

neckro23 — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 03:20:09 -0800

Why does the first frame of the Incredible Machine 01 video says "LOL, jews"?

By: loquacious

loquacious — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 03:46:01 -0800

Woah, it does look like it says "LOL, jews". WTF?

By: caddis

caddis — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 05:09:22 -0800

Now that is how to post a video to the front page!

By: Baby_Balrog

Baby_Balrog — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 08:35:50 -0800

Ooooo then it hits the little glasses and plays the song! Brilliant. This is probably some sort of PBS inter-commercial break thing. For kids. I wish someone had gotten me interested in this sort of thing when I was a kid. *Insert comment about Japanese kids being generally brighter than American kids* *auto industry analogy*

By: thefreek

thefreek — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 09:15:49 -0800

LOL, jews

By: planetkyoto

planetkyoto — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 09:26:57 -0800

Oh, man, my 2-year-old son LOVES this segment. He'll go tearing into the living room when he hears the little "pi-ta-go-ra su-i-tchi" jingle. This is NOT one of the more complicated ones, let me tell you. The are built by university engineering students, as I recall from the credits. I've often thought about recording and posting one. Right after this is "algorithym calisthenics" which is a line of people doing a chain of staggered calitsthenics, each person starting one move after his neighbor, so that one guy is swinging his arms left just as the guy on his left is ducking down. Ah, now I see Donkeymon has posted the home page, you can see the algorithym taisoh guys on the bottom right.

By: InnocentBystander

InnocentBystander — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 09:44:20 -0800

Does anyone else suspect that some of these required a lot of takes to get right? Some just seem too improbable, and that chaos would start taking a heavy toll. (I'm thinking especially of the one near the end where the ball rolls into a cone, which then spins and weaves unguided across the books)

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 09:58:58 -0800

The one where the ball travells around the magnetic course is crazy.

By: Skygazer

Skygazer — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 10:36:28 -0800

Great stuff, I loved it. But sadly yet another example of why this country is lapsing into a third world backwater. Our advanced Rube Goldberg funding is being slashed! It's insanity I tell you, INSANITY!!

By: quin

quin — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 10:41:21 -0800

That was so freakin' awesome.

By: Busithoth

Busithoth — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 11:06:51 -0800

some of these are brilliant. I got excited watching a string of marbles go through some substance and accelerate upon exiting.

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 11:12:44 -0800

Glad to see Pythagora Switch representin'.

By: iconjack

iconjack — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 11:24:15 -0800

annoying soundtrack alert I thought the soundtrack was right on the money!

By: furtive

furtive — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 11:33:05 -0800

This is awesome. Anyone have a video clip of those algorithm calisthenics?

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 11:39:49 -0800

No video clip of the calisthenics, but I have stick figure animation of the algoritm march for you (Click the words next to the little picture of the three guys, third choice down). The calistenics aren't as interesting as the algorithm march, because they're formed in pairs, instead of a long chain.

By: brain_drain

brain_drain — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 12:01:41 -0800

If I had more patience, raw materials, and skill, I would totally make one of those.

By: The Monkey

The Monkey — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 17:47:00 -0800

The bit where the marbles travelled between a couple of panes of (I'm guessing) glass, making them look like they were gliding through the air, that was awesome. And that bit where the ball was in a cup, and the whole thing glided back and forth over several books seemingly randomly? Also awesome. And the one where the magnets slowly rotated in series forcing their neighbour to follow their movement? Genius! Broken-single-link-to-youtube posts really can the best of the web. Oh, and I liked the soundtrack.

By: eriko

eriko — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 19:27:56 -0800

The off-center hammers knocking the marble uphill left me giggling.