Reverse Engineering: Coke Rube Goldberg

Purpose

• To break down how the Coke Rube Goldberg machine works

Starting Point

• Last part of the Coke Rube Goldberg machine

[Last Part of the Machine]

• Two bottles of Coke are opened and poured into glasses

• A barrel falls on/in to a lever to start a device that opens and pours the bottles of Coke

• Barrel rolls down a series of ramps... smoke device begins to go off

• Mattresses topple down on to a board or lever of some sort that releases a barrel on top of the series of ramps

• A dummy flies through the air, landing on the top of the mattress tower which causes it to fall over

• An object falls through the air and lands on the up-side of the see-saw; launching a dummy at the mattresses

• Bowling ball falls off of a ramp on to a pair of garden sheers that cut a rope; the rope releases an object that falls on the see-saw

• Bowling ball slides down a ramp; going through a series of mini-tunnels that have different colored bowling balls in them to give the illusion of color change

• An object gets launched through the sky and hits a target; the target flips around which releases a bowling ball

• A bag of popcorn spills over on a platform of some sort that is weight/pressure censored. The platform releases an object that is launched at the target

• A piece of butter slides down a ramp and lands on a bag of popcorn which causes it to tip over

• "Pac Man" object hits a target that gets pushed; in turn the target pushes the piece of butter down the ramp

• "Pac Man" object rotates around a pole as it eats the 'white point spheres' from the "Pac Man" video game

• Balls hit a symbol from a drum set that releases the "Pac Man" object (Not exactly sure how the two were connected)

• Balls fall out of a tube on to single drums that bounce through rings to the next drum in the series, the balls eventually bounce off the last drum and hit the symbol

• A skateboard hits a platform/wall that makes planes fly around the room; the planes somehow release the balls that fall out of a tube

• Skateboard starts to roll down a ramp which knocks down a stick that releases a "Double Rainbow" (Just for cosmetic effect, skateboard continues to roll down the ramp to the next part)

• Bowling ball slides down a long, spiraled ramp; the bowling ball hits into a board that somehow releases the skateboard above

• Bowling ball slides through a door on the ramp which makes 10 bowling pins that were on either side of the door stand up (Another part made simply for cosmetic effect, the ball continues to roll down the ramp)

• Shopping cart gets stopped by running into a wood block; cart tips over which releases the bowling ball onto a ramp

• A piece of wood standing up on the back of the shopping cart knocks a bowling ball above into the front of the cart

• A foam finger gets lifted up which releases a brake that is on the shopping cart; the cart begins to roll down the ramp

[First Part of Machine]

• Coke bottles get pushed into a cup slot at the same time; the slot triggers a mechanism that raises a foam finger up