Rube Goldberg's Motives Behind Cartoon Machines

Rube Goldberg, during his lifetime, was a well known cartoonist who utilized his engineering knowledge within his created drawings. Goldberg’s legacy introduces students to his methods of incorporating extravagant machines that contribute towards completing a very simple task. For instance, Rube Goldberg captured the attention of numerous citizens following a cartoon which used a lengthy chain reaction to merely wipe the characters mouth with a napkin. Thus, complex machines which accomplish simple tasks are called Rube Goldberg machines. Due to Mr. Goldberg’s cartoon and engineering background, Rube Goldberg machines allowed him to create devices that captured the attention of viewers and exercise his physics knowledge. To portray his motive behind the cartoon machines, Rube Goldberg described them as a “symbol of man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to accomplish minimal results."
Within Rube Goldberg machines, it was extremely common for Mr. Goldberg to incorporate the six simple machines, due to their helpful nature to complete his wanted task. The six simple machines include: pulley, lever, wheel and axle, inclined plane, screw, and wedge. First, a pulley is a wheel with a lipped ledge along with a rope or string wrapped around the wheel in order to help lift/move

Throughout each step of a Rube Goldberg Machine, energy conversions are what make a machine capable of continuing to work properly. Typical Rube Goldberg Machines begin with numerous objects containing high amounts of potential energy that are ready to be converted to kinetic energy. The conversion between potential to kinetic energy allows each object to complete steps like knock over dominos or lowering a pulley. If a Rube Goldberg Machine did not contain energy conversions of great magnitude, the end goal task may not be completed. Thus, precise energy conversions are essential to a working Rube Goldberg