TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Python Calculus
Learners analyze a cartoon of a Rube Goldberg machine and a Python programming language script to practice engineering analysis. This exercise enables students to see the parallels between a more traditional mechanical engineering design...
Rube Goldberg
Rube Goldberg Inc.: Rube Goldberg Gallery
All the important information on Rube Goldberg, including cartoons of Rube Goldberg machines complete with descriptions of how each machine works.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design and Build a Rube Goldberg
In this two-part activity, students design and build a Rube Goldberg machine. The open ended problem uses the engineering design process and can have a preset purpose, such as rolling a marble into a cup from a distance, or can be left...
Other
Rube Goldberg Machine Contests
This is the home site for the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. The competition is on to see who can build the zaniest machines. Read about machine ideas, contest winners, and how to build a Rube Goldberg Machine.
Purdue University
Purdue University: Rube Goldberg Contest at Purdue
Great information on this nationally renowned Rube Goldberg design contest. Excellent descriptions and photos of machines are included.
Technovation
Curiosity Machine: Challenges: Build a Rube Goldberg Machine
Build a machine that accomplishes a task in an inefficient way with this Rube Goldberg challenge. Find some tips and a place to document your engineering process on this site.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Construction of a Complex Machine Through Classroom Collaboration
Students take a simple task and make it much more complicated using a cardboard box. Each group must use a minimum of six simple machines utilizing at least four types of simple machines. The goal is to keep the initial impulse moving...
Smithsonian Institution
Lemelson Center: Tinker Ball
Build a virtual Rube Goldberg machine, and try to create a successful path for the ball. Requires Adobe Flash.
Other
Rube Goldberg
Get a look into the life of the wacky machine inventor Rube Goldberg. Includes a terrific biography, a gallery of his cartoon inventions, and a link to The Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Design Your Own Rube Goldberg Machine
Rube Goldberg is famous for his very complex machines that accomplish everyday tasks. Students will design and build a Rube Goldberg machine that will accomplish a simple task in no less than ten steps.
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Rube Goldberg and the Meaning of Machines
Simple and compound machines are designed to make work easier. When we encounter a machine that does not fit this understanding, the so-called machine seems absurd. In this lesson plan, the cartoons of Rube Goldberg are introduced and...
Utah State Office of Education
Utah State Office of Education: Rube Goldberg Activity
Contains a description, pictures, and a video of a Rube Goldberg machine in action. Also describes an activity to build a 20 step Rube Goldberg Machine.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mit: Rube Goldberg
This article from Massachusetts Institute of Technology describes Rube Goldberg's work as a cartoonist.
Alabama Learning Exchange
Alex: How to Make Something Simple, Hard
Middle schoolers will have completed a unit of forces and motion prior to the current unit of study on simple machines (lever, inclined plane, screw, wedge, pulley, wheel and axle). Students will review the functions and examples of...
PBS
Pbs Teachers: Games Machines Play: Rube Goldberg Challenge
Explore the cartoons of Rube Goldberg and design a complex machine to perform a simple task. Use scientific design elements and information about energy transfer to build a model of the machine.
PBS
Pbs Kids "Zoom": Rube Goldberg Machine Building
This site from PBS Kids "Zoom" provides great ideas for building a Rube Goldberg machine around the house from common items. The information is complete with materials needed, instructions, and results on a level for elementary kids.