Q&A for How to Build a Homemade Rube Goldberg Machine

You can usually find more ideas for Rube Goldberg machines if you Google it. Pinterest is a good resource.

The whole point of the Rube-Goldberg machine is for it to do it by itself, no touching allowed.

You could have the machine pop a ballon, drop a can into a bin, throw a marshmallow, water a plant, or pour dog food in a dish.

Not usually, but it depends; usually you can just find things around the house to make it out of, but other times you may have to buy some things. The more complex a Rube Goldberg is, the more things you will have to buy.

Usually just a person does one thing to start it. For example, in the YouTube video "OK Go This Too Shall Pass Rube Goldberg Machine," the starting action was the guy in the red pushing the car into the rest of the machine, which set off the chain reaction.

For me, this project took around 2 hours. Some of my friends completed it in one hour, though. It depends on how quickly you work.

Yes. The only limit for number of steps is space and cost. For example, you could push a toy car down a ramp, which lowers onto a platform attached to a cigarette lighter, which lights a fire, boiling water on top of a seesaw, which causes the other end to sink downwards onto a button, turning on a laser pointer, shining it into a detector, cutting a rope attached to a ball, landing on the switch.

Yes, that is the whole point. The engineering process is what makes a Rube Goldberg a Rube Goldberg.

You can't really make a homework machine, because it is not a simple task. I would recommend doing something more common, such as pouring lemonade, turning off an alarm clock, etc. Even a complicated computer might not be able to do your homework for you accurately, so it would be impossible to make a Rube Goldberg machine that does this.

Be creative! Look around your house for materials that you can use. You shouldn't have to go to the store to get your items. Some materials you can use are: Toilet paper rolls, dominoes, rolling balls, etc.

No. A water balloon can be used, but there are no required components in a Rube Goldberg Machine.

Sort of. Generally, it's about doing something easy.

The only limits are how much space you have and how much the materials cost.

Rube Goldberg is dead, but he was born in 1883 and lived until 1970 (Rube Goldberg was 87 when he died).

Yes. All machines are simple machines. Everything is made up of simple machines. A complicated machine like a car uses simple machines inside it.

Materials will be collected according to the task so the measurements will vary.

You scrounge around the house or garage and find them, or you go to a store and buy them.

Yes, you could the same way of pouring milk into cereal. What you could use is the push of a car to run into a domino. The domino hits a small platform with a little space where it can fall. On the platform right in front of the domino is a watering can. It should tip over but not fall by a block (part of the platform so it cannot fall over). In front of that is your plant.

No, a Rube Goldberg machine can be any length, but preferably it should be at least 3 or 4 steps.