For the final project in my illustration 2 class Professor Bonavoglia (@VinceBon on Twitter) assigned us to create a machine that functions like a Rube Goldberg machine. For those that are unaware of what that is, it’s basically a complex machine with many steps whose main function is to solve simple issue, such as opening a door, turning on the lights, or making toast. Professor Bonavoglia gave us one week to complete this task and had no other requirements for the project other than making it resemble a Rube Goldberg machine.

I started by looking up images of classic Rube Goldberg machine which came from the 1920’s! I also looked at modern takes of the machine as well. Once I understood how I would be able to construct the machine I then started to brainstorm what the purpose of the machine was going to be. My sketches were done in photoshop and I wanted to create a machine with it’s end goal being to pet a dog. Along with my research I would also look at the vintage Tom and Jerry cartoon for inspiration as that show would always have the two characters create inventions to best each other. I also looked up the classic game Mouse Trap for obvious reasons. Everything was going well until I notice that the physics were not correct and in the end needed to scrap the idea.

My second attempt went much better and I changed the end goal idea to making toast since it seemed like an even simpler task. In my final rendering of the Rube Goldberg machine shows it starting with a person pushing a bowling ball (1), which makes it roll of the table on to the seesaw (2), the weight of the bowling ball launches the rock on to a button (3), pressing the button causes the cat crate to open and wakes the cat which scares the rat (4), the rat goes down the slide and pushes the rod which pushes the hairdryer button (5), the hairdryer then melts the ice (6), the bucket catches the water making it go down causing the hand to push down the level on the toaster and BAM!, you have toast the Rube Goldberg way.