Rube Goldberg machine

Rube Goldberg machine

Rube Goldber (Reuben Lucius Goldberg) was born on July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970). He was a Jewish American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and also inventor.
Goldberg is known from a variety of cartoons, where he designed complex machines that perform simple actions.
Goldberg was a founding member and the first president of the National Cartoonists Society and is the name sake of the Reuben Award which the organization awards to the Cartoonist of the Year. He is the inspiration for various international competitions, known as Rube Goldberg contests, which challenge participants to make a complex machine to perform a simple task.

A Rube Goldberg machine is a deliberately over-engineered machine that performs a very simple task in a very complex fashion, usually including a chain reaction. The expression is named after American cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg.