Written by Saina Doval, a grade 5 student.

Have you ever seen or heard about a Rube Goldberg machine? You probably have but you just don’t know.

A  Rube Goldberg machine is actually really fun.

It takes easy simple tasks but does them in a very complicated way. Here’s an example – imagine that you want to wipe your chin. That sounds easy, doesn’t it? But a Rube Goldberg machine would do it in an as complicated a manner as possible – it would drop a spoon, which pulls a string that jerks a ladle, that lands on a cracker, which, in turn,  makes the stone flip, which makes a parrot jump. The parrot then drops a seed, which lights a cigar, and that napkin swings and wipes your chin. A pretty long process isn’t it? Are you wondering why someone would create such a thing? If you do you should take a closer look at Rube Goldberg.

Who was Rube Goldberg?

Rube Goldberg was born on July 4^th, 1883, and was given the name Rueben Lucius Goldberg. As a child, he loved to draw and was really good at it. His passion for drawing led him to become a cartoonist for the Evening Mail, a well-known newspaper. His characters were funny and at the same time scientific. He used his engineering skills for his comic strips, all of which had some kind of cool invention. His work was appreciated and soon comics became a worldwide sensation. In 1931, the Merriam Webster dictionary added Rube Goldberg as a synonym for an accomplishment.

As the years passed by, his popularity only grew as people kept loving his comic strips. Soon Goldberg’s readers were inspired to bring his machines to life. Even today there are competitions to see who can make a simple task more complex, a tribute to his way of thinking. Do you want to know how to make a Rube Goldberg machine? It is really easy just to search “how to make a Rube Goldberg machine” on the internet, and you will find many brilliant ideas. I just did some!

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