The 2011 Purdue University Rube Goldberg machine shattered the world record for most steps ever successfully completed by such a machine. In 244 steps the “Time Machine” traces the history of the world from Big Bang to the Apocalypse before accomplishing the assigned everyday task of watering a flower.

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Very nice. Though I’m not sure how they count the 244. It didn’t seem nearly that many things were shown.

I counted about 25 steps. I may have miscounted, but I’m probably close.

Definitely not 244.

yeah.. I’m not impressed. Too much reliance upon motors and electronics for my tastes. There can be bells and whistles and lights, but the primary motions should be purely kinetic.

Ok. For those who were a bit dissapointed…

OK GO!

I agree with the comments ON the YouTube site itself.  There really is no way to know for sure whether close-up ‘reactions’ shots were the result of the machine’s cause/effect OR whether it was careful shooting by the videographer that makes it ‘seem’ as if the machine managed the cause/effect steps on its own.

Sharruma - 22 April 2011 01:22 AM

I counted about 25 steps. I may have miscounted, but I’m probably close.

Definitely not 244.

I’m thinking that the other steps are the ones that happened behind the scenes; they show a lot of things being triggered, but don’t show the process that triggers them.  Such as when the fan turns on and blows the ship down the slipway. . .they never seem to show what starts up the fan.

And it’s strange, but I seem to recall that there might have been one or two minor events between the Medieval period and the Second World War.  Plus, they used the wrong sort of camel for the Egyptian scene. 

Unfairly Balanced - 22 April 2011 09:44 AM

Ok. For those who were a bit dissapointed…

OK GO!

Nice!
Thanks!

A number of years ago I and two friends of mine ended up signing up for an engineering competition.  The task we signed up for was to construct a Rube Goldberg machine of a specified size (it was something like two cubic meters) that would, in a set number of steps, end up picking up a raw egg and placing it into a cup without breaking the egg.  Oh, and no motors were allowed.  I forget what was supposed to start it off; that, to, was specified, but everything in between the start and the finish was up to the teams building the things.  I had a lot of fun putting together that contraption.  Sadly, when we got it to the event, we discovered that they’d given us the requirements for the previous year’s event, and our machine didn’t meet the latest year’s size requirements.  So it was automatically disqualified and we never got to show it off.