Rube Goldberg

Rude Goldberg Research As we usually know, Rude Goldberg can be simply explain as putting things in order and make them fall down one by one. This is what we always think of Rude Goldberg. In fact, Rude Goldberg was a famous American cartoonist whose work mocked America’s fixation on technology and this work was named by “Rude Goldberg”. I believe that not so many people know this. At his young age, he loved drawing, tracing and being creative but this was discouraged by his parents. In 1900 he graduated from Lowell High School in San Francisco and in 1904, he graduated with a degree in engineering from the University of California, Berkeley . He was then hired as an engineer by the city of San Francisco but eventually quit to become a sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle but left only a year later to work with the San Francisco Bulletin. In 1907 he moved to New York where he worked for several newspapers and by 1915, soon found national acclaim as a copious artist. He met his Finacee Irma Seeman in 1916 and had two children, Thomas and George. When World War II started, he asked his sons change their name for their protection, because they were jewish people. As we know, Hitler ordered all the German people to kill Jews as much as possible, so changing their surname gave a good safety net to them. One of his son became a painter later on, the other one was a Hollywood writer and producer. In 1938, Rube Goldberg gave up cartooning and wrote popular articles and stories but returned to editorial cartooning for the New York Sun. Later, he was employed by the New York Journal America until his retirement in 1964 where thereafter he made bronze sculptors. Throughout his career, Goldberg was fascinated by the advancement of technology and thought it humorous as people either embraced change and the benefits technology brought or were reluctant as it seemingly increased dependency and laziness. He personally believed people preferred choosing a more difficult route instead of completing a goal simply and directly. As he said, “the machines are a symbol of man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to achieve minimal results”. His inventions were interesting as he did the complete opposite of what most machines do – instead of making difficult things easy, he made easy things difficult. On his “Rube Goldberg Machine” work, he would spend over 30 hours on each piece with close attention to precision regarding the lines and details. In his whole life, he has been awarded so many times, such as a Pulitzer Prize in 1948 and the Banshee Silver Lady in 1959. His famous drawings depicted complex gadgets that performed even the simplest tasks in convoluted, elaborate ways, known as Rube Goldberg machines. There are six types of simple Rude Goldberg machines. One of these are inclined plane, which is a slanting surface connecting a lower lever to a higher level. Screw is also an inclined plane that wrapped around a cylinder. Wedge is the edge of a smooth slanted surface. We also need a lever, a stiff bar that rest on a fulcrum and pulley, a groove wheel with a rope or cable around it. Both Wheel and axle is needed to move together through its center.