The biggest professional accolade achieved by Rube Goldberg, who would’ve turned a whopping 135 today (July 4), would probably be winning the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning in 1948. However, in pop culture, he’ll forever be known for the Rube Goldberg Machine.
What’s a Rube Goldberg Machine? It’s when someone creates a contraption with multiple objects to create a domino effect in order to produce some sort of end result. (If you ever played the board game Mouse Trap, that’s an example of a Rube Goldberg Machine.)
In honor of Goldberg’s birthday, we present to you via Guinness World Records the world’s largest Rube Goldberg machine. This machine was created by Latvian e-commerce company Scandiweb as part of the Christmas tree lighting ceremony that took place in Latvia’s capital city of Riga.
The video itself clocks in a little under five minutes, so the world record was certainly earned. We can’t even imagine all of the time and preparation that went into this feat!
Erica Banas is a rock/classic rock blogger that loves the smell of old vinyl in the morning.