Addendum: I actually wrote two posts today. The other was a guest post for Ilker of The Thinking Blog who is very busy at the moment with exams. Check it out here. (very interesting stuff if I do say so myself.)

How many of you played the game “Mouse Trap” as kids? The object of the game was simple, catch a mouse. Getting that done was the fun part. The “Mouse Trap” game was inspired by one of the greatest cartoonists of the 20th century, Rube Goldberg.

Rube Goldberg was an engineer according to his degree from UC Berkely but his love for drawing never let him accomplish much in that field — at least not directly. He is best known for his “Goldberg Machines” which performed a simple task, for example, swatting a fly, in an extremely complicated way. (The X under the boot is where the fly goes.)

From the idea of making the simple complex was born a competition at Purdue University. Aptly named the, “Rube Goldberg Contest”, groups are assigned a task and a minimum number of steps in which to complete the task. Groups from all over the country participate. The 2007 task? Juice and orange and pour the juice into a cup in 20 steps or more. Flames, explosives, and live animals are prohibited

Filed under: Cultural Curiositites, Tech