What engineers do when they retire

What's the point of all the gadgets? I thought one or two would have been used to wake someone up or to make breakfast!

Marvinh

 

The entire point of a Goldberg device is to make the most complicated series of machines to do the simplest task. Here, all of that is done to open the window shades in the morning.

The point is the challenge of making all the little gadgets work together.

 

I love the modern touch of the cell phone calling another phone that starts a process in a completely different house.

Some people have WAY too much time on their hands!

 

Awesome!

 

Cool. But I bet it doesn't work every time. Some of those items, like the toilet paper unrolling and the slinky, are unstable systems, and will sometimes miss their target.

 

I doubt it has ever all worked. The video has lots of cuts in it as the gadgets move from one room to another.

 

Since none of my windows have curtains I never realized what it takes to open them. What do you do when you want them closed?

 

I don't know about other folks, but when I want my curtains closed I just turn the whole contraption around the other way.

 

Looks like fun. That must have taken days. I suppose the overflowing sink will eventually put out the fire from the candle that was left burning...

I remember making Rube Goldberg machines, probably about grade 7. We had to explain all the processes involved, calculate the forces, and use several forms of energy to get good marks. Carrying it to school was the hardest part.

 

A busy retired engineer is an engineer who probably won't become diabolical and try to enslave the planet

 

That's cheating!!! I don't mind if it doesn't work every time. That's what product development is for. But if they have to run it in segments then it's a fake!!!

 

Thanks for sharing that great video!

Reminds me of the old Honda commercial of a Goldberg device