Pictured with their Rube Goldberg machine are: Tanner DeBoer, Caide Northrup, and Lyndon Magiskan as they play the role of engineers in trying to get a Rube Goldberg project to work.
Through a generous grant from the Lionesses and Lions Club, Cook County High School and Middle School science students used hands-on materials to explore concepts of energy, electricity, and computer programming. The kids designed a “Rube Goldberg” machine.
Goldberg was an American cartoonist, inventor, sculptor, author, who drew machines designed to do a simple task through a series of silly, overcomplicated procedures.
One of Goldberg’s most famous inventions involved making a machine that would wipe the chin of someone eating soup.
When the soup eater lifted his spoon a string was pulled that jerked the soup ladle that threw a cracker past a parrot. When the parrot jumped for the cracker its perch tilted and dropped seeds into a pail. When the pail started to fill the extra weight in the pail pulled a chord that opened and lighted an automatic cigar lighter which in turn set off a rocket that caused a sickle to cut a string which allowed a pendulum with a napkin attached to swing back and forth to wipe the soup eater’s chin. Simple!
In 1931, Merriam-Webster Dictionary added, “Rube Goldberg” as an adjective that meant, “Accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply.”
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