A Rube Goldberg machine is deliberately over-engineered to perform a very simple task in a very complex fashion. The expression is named after American cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg.

Check out the official Rube Goldberg website here.
The Purdue Society of Professional Engineers created a machine that blew up and popped a balloon in a winding 300 steps. This is largest Rube Goldberg machine and set a Guinness world record. The Purdue team spent over 6 months designing and building the machine. Here it is in action.
You can watch the video below and see how the team built the machine. (It's 33 minutes long and should kill a little time while at work)

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