Rob Beschizza
Gear

Engineered Insanity: A Gallery of Wonderfully Useless Complexity

MakMost legacies are complex and indirect, but Rube Goldberg's is literally so: the cartoonist is famous for his sketches of insanely complicated contraptions.
Masters of Inefficiency
2007's winners of the regional Rube Goldberg Machine Contest at Purdue University celebrate after their contraption beat out others to win top spot. The massive device, which successfully poured a single glass of orange juice, was assembled by Michael Stumpf (left), Greg Bauman (center) and Drew Wischer (right). The lads spent 3,000 hours making the machine as inefficient as possible.Photo: Courtesy of Purdue University
Delicate Adjustments
Photo: Courtesy of Purdue University
Victory
Photo: Courtesy of Purdue University
Light Switch
Photo: Courtesy of Purdue University
Batteries not Included
Photo: Courtesy of Purdue University
Vote Early Vote Often
Photo: Courtesy of Purdue University
Old Glory
Photo: Courtesy of Purdue University
Can I Get a Ramen
Photo: Courtesy of Marusan
Mystery Machine
Photo: Courtesy of Wikipedia
Heath Robinson Machines
Photos: Courtesy of the BBC. Illustration by William Heath Robinson, copyright expired.
The Incredible Machine
Image: Courtesy of Moby Games, copyright Sierra Entertainment
Car Parts
Image: Captured from video courtesy of American Honda Motor Co.
Natural Complexity

Gray's Anatomy

, copyright expired