You've heard of Rube Goldberg machines, right? Well here's a Rube "Slowberg" machine for you.
Inventor and Director Bob Partington has designed and built the world's slowest Rube Goldberg machine. It takes over six weeks for his golf ball to go through the entire system where it encounters molasses, melting popsicles, and a turtle. Oh and it literally has to sit and wait for grass to grow. Luckily for you, there's a time-lapse version that takes less than three minutes.
Partington is clearly a big fan taking the viewers expectations and flipping them on their head. Last year, he worked his magic on an OK Go music video for their song "The Writing's On the Wall". He also had a show on The History Channel called "Thingamabob" in which he had to create something new from three random objects from America's past. For example: an old-fashioned coffee grinder, a fireman's hose, and a rocking chair. I'm guessing he did more than just sit in the chair and drink coffee while watering the lawn.
Here's some more geek from the week:
- Octopuses at the California Academy of Sciences have both their bodies and their brains fed. [VIDEO]
- The North Face teams up with Japanese scientists to make a parka from spider silk. [VIDEO]
- Speaking of spiders, this grad student live-tweeted black widow spiders mating.
- The roots of most plants extend MUCH farther than you might think. Check out this stunning photography project.
- St. Louis's Gateway Arch just turned 50! Here's the science of how it stands.
- Halloween in New Haven is a social science experiment for one professor.
- A scientific look at the phenomenon of Sean Bean dying on film.
- Scientists continue to investigate whether hot streaks are real or not in gambling and sports.
- The late mathematician Martin Gardner had way too much fun with simple geometry. MIND BLOWN.
- Space might be filled with drunk comets. Okay not quite, but that got your attention, right?
- The Universe can be beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Here's a gallery of images to prove it.
Keep on geeking!
@Summer_Ash, In-house Astrophysicist