What can make a piece of toast, juice oranges, assemble a hamburger, insert a CD into a CD player, shut off an alarm clock, put a stamp on an envelope, sharpen a pencil, water a plant, peel an apple, blow up and pop a balloon plus 289 other things?
Answer: The World’s Most Complex Rube Goldberg Machine.
At the 2012 Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, a record breaking 300-step Rube Goldberg Machine was revealed by the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers (PSPE) Rube Goldberg Team, a 14-person team made up of 13 undergraduates and one graduate student. According to the World Records Academy, the team spent more than 5,000 hours and over six months designing and building the new record-breaking machine which not only accomplished the assigned task -blowing up and popping a balloon- but also every other task ever assigned in the competition’s 25-year history.
Though the team got second place, they also earned the People’s Choice Award and I feel it’s pretty safe to say they are earning a fair share of PR attention. Watch the first prize winner machine in action HERE.
Watch the the record-breaking machine in all it’s glory below.
Read more at Wired, io9 and World Records Academy.
[Header image via Wired]
