Even More Trivia: Contraptions

"Man will always find a difficult means to perform a simple task"

Today's trivia is all about a particular class of contraption or machine which attempts to complete an everyday activity in the most complicated way possible.

Known as Heath Robinson or Rube Goldberg machines after their respective authors, we will attempt to understand what these machines are, and how one might go about making one. Of course avoiding the obvious question of why one might want to do this in the first place.

Rube Goldberg: A simple pencil sharpener Full Size

Both are famous for creating cartoons depicting seemingly improbably machines. In the case of Rube Goldberg we know he authored something like 50,000 comics as a regular feature in a newspaper.

Heath Robinson: A bridge opening mechansim

Clearly the entertainment of these comics was derived both from the reader following or working out the machine, followed by the punch line of the joke being the end result; a simple action performed.

The comics are timely and sometimes political in nature being created around the time of the first world war onwards.

Rube Goldberg: The War Machine Full Size

Heath Robinson: A multi-movement bomb catcher

As a Phrase

Clearly these contraptions and ideas became incredibly popular. Being firmly rooted in public consciousness during the early 20th century.

In British English, to do a "Heath Robinson" is exactly what you might expect. To create some seemingly improbably contraption to solve a problem. The same applies in the US. Both Rube Goldberg and Heath Robinson have entries in dictionaries explaining the meaning:

accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply. A kind of Rube Goldberg contraption ... with five hundred moving parts — L. T. Grant; also : characterized by such complex means

if a machine or system is Heath Robinson, it is very complicated in a way that is funny, but not practical or effective

Competitions

Spinning out of this is of course the desire to indeed create machines that are overly complex in the tast they are trying to solve. So much so that there are a number of competitions which enthusiastic machine creators can partake in:

The last is a large American university contest which is held each year hosted by Purdue University. The winning machines are those machines that most effectively combine creativity with inefficiency and complexity.

Details of the latest 2012 winner:

This year's machine had an end-of-the-world theme that incorporated music throughout the run, ranging from the "Jaws" theme to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony to the "Indiana Jones" theme.

The St. Olaf machine had 191 steps. The team completed one perfect run and one run with one human intervention.

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Mouse Trap

Interestingly and perhaps unsurprisingly the famous game "Mouse Trap" was inspired by a Rube Goldberg comic.

However even though the manufacturer manufacturer Marvin Glass (and his company, Marvin Glass and Associates) admits he was inspired by Rube, he refused to pay royalty payments. Rube, an old man by this point declined to take legal action and instead licensed the comics to another company to manufacture toys based on the ideas from which he could then collect royalties.