II. Rube GoldbergAn introduction to his Life

and examples of “his” machines

A. Biography1. Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) was a

Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, sculptor, and author.

2. His father insisted he go to college to become an engineer.

3. Went to college at the University of California Berkeley. After college, Rube Goldberg went to work as an engineer with the City of San Francisco Water and Sewers Department.

A. Biography (continued)4. After 6 months, he decided engineering

wasn’t for him and convinced his father to let him work as an artist

5. Cartoonist for several publications, including San Francisco Chronicle (1904–05), The San Francisco Bulletin (1905–07), and the New York Evening Mail (1907–21).a) created three long-running comic strips with

the Evening Mail6. After much work, he eventually became a

founding member of the National Cartoonist Society, a political cartoonist and a Pulitzer Prize winner

Examples of his Artwork

B. Goldberg’s “Inventions”

1. discovered difficult ways to achieve easy results.

2. his inventions made simple tasks amazingly complex. Dozens of arms, wheels, gears, handles, cups, and rods were put in motion by balls, canary cages, pails, boots, bathtubs, paddles, and live animals for simple tasks like squeezing an orange for juice or closing a window in case it should start to rain before one gets home.

C. Examples of Rube Goldberg Machines

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J16dyV4Du8&feature=related Office Fun (0:52)

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCYg_gz4fDo&feature=related – Mythbusters (4:03)

3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrCb_fNmSTA – Cream that Egg!

4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOMIBdM6N7Q – The Page Turner

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w – This Too Shall Pass- OKGo Video (3:54)

6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF3nV0r87v8 – Rube Goldberg Machine Winners- Jimmy Kimmel (5:06)

7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vacNFcN0is – Rube Goldberg Machine AP Physics (3:08)