Rube Goldberg machine

Rube Goldberg's Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin (1931). Soup spoon (A) is raised to mouth, pulling string (B) and thereby jerking ladle (C), which throws cracker (D) past toucan (E). Toucan jumps after cracker and perch (F) tilts, upsetting seeds (G) into pail (H). Extra weight in the pail pulls cord (I), which opens and ignites fuse (J), setting off skyrocket (K), which causes sickle (L) to cut string (M), allowing pendulum with attached napkin to swing back and forth, thereby wiping chin. A Rube Goldberg machine, named after American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is a chain reaction–type machine or contraption intentionally designed to perform a simple task in a comically overcomplicated way. First appearing in a cartoon for the New York Evening Mail, these machines consist of a series of simple unrelated devices; the action of each triggers the initiation of the next, eventually resulting in achieving a stated goal.

The term was used to describe complex contraptions, and was featured in the Random House Dictionary of the English Language. Such machines have been featured in popular culture, for example, a breakfast scene in Pee-wee's Big Adventure, used in education, and are the subjects of many different Rube Goldberg competitions. There have been other forms of expressions that are similar to Rube Goldberg machines, such as W. Heath Robinson's Heath Robinson contraptions.