2025 Collab: Week 09 “Rube Goldberg Machine” - VOTE CLOSED

[FedPete]

This is the Blender Collaboration 2025, week 09 challenge. Don’t be afraid to join, a lot of us are beginners. This is all to practice, have fun, learn, and get together.

This week’s subject is “Rube Goldberg Machine”.

• Rube Goldberg Machine - A Rube Goldberg machine, named after American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is a chain reaction–type machine or contraption intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and (impractically) overly complicated way. See: Rube Goldberg machine
• Subject selected by the previous Week 07, 2025 “ Swords and Knives " winner mfortunato

The rules are simple. 1 subject, 1 entry, 1 week.
You create whatever object or scene or whatever you can think of that has something to do with the subject. It can be as simple or complicated as you want, all entries are welcome!
Post your picture here in this thread. At the end of the week, we start to vote. And if you are the winner, you may choose the next subject and win a unique badge.

Deadline: 2025-03-01T22:55:00Z

• Last week’s collab: Blender Collab: Week 08 “Carnival”
• Next week: 10 - Light side / dark side
• See all previous challenges in Hall of Fame 2025
• Halls of fame 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020

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Subscribe or unsubscribe to this “BlenderCollab” group.

[mfortunato]

While the machine you create can be anything that causes a chain reaction, if you’d like some ideas, here’s a link to a gallery of Rube Goldberg’s work: https://www.rubegoldberg.org/all-about-rube/cartoon-gallery/

[mfortunato]

Finally getting to the pieces of my Rube Goldberg machine. Here’s a WIP (I still have more parts to model and put the whole thing together). Hopefully I’ll have a chance to animate it all as well…

And, for kicks, an animated version (still working on it but it’s all I have time for at the moment):

Rube Goldberg animation test

Final Render without explainer text:

Final Render with explainer text:

[Srl1]

Nice! I also made one, almost finished the animation. Just can’t figure out how to cut the rope. I’ll probably swap it for something easier to move.

Final render and animation:

- YouTube

This was quite an experience! This was my first time doing physics simulation, animation, and video editing, but I had fun and learned something new.

[mfortunato]

Sweet! Hope to see it animated. Not sure if I’ll have the time to get mine animated, but we’ll see. I have 4 more elements to add first.

[Srl1]

To be honest, this was the first time I heard about a Rube Goldberg machine. The link you provided gave me some insights, and I got hooked instantly. Given the short time frame, I decided to reuse assets from my older renders and create an animation.

I know the basics of animating in Blender, but apart from moving the camera around, I haven’t explored much. So this is a bit of a challenge. I hope I get it right!

[mfortunato]

It’s not necessarily about getting it right, it’s really about learning and improving. It’s a good community here who will be glad to give you feedback.
I spent 2 hours experimenting with bone rigging to get the scissor mechanism to animate so the boxing glove could punch the bowling ball. It was ridiculous!

[NP5]

I had heard it before but to me it is more the old old computer game The Incredible Machine.

[Megane_Wang]

I played with that one! Good idea, I was not too inspired this week.

[Srl1]

Just checked out the gameplay on YouTube since I couldn’t remember that title, and it looks pretty fun!

[mfortunato]

There’s also a mobile game based off of Rube Goldberg’s actual cartoons. And, yep, Goldberg’s machines were inspirations for The Incredible Machine, Quantum Conundrum, and, of course, the board game, Mousetrap (I love setting up the mousetrap more than playing the actual boardgame).

[mfortunato]

@Srl1 Oh that ending was hilarious and totally unexpected! Really great job on the whole thing.

[FedPete]

We @BlenderCollab have a few days to vote. You can vote fast but also think slowly about design, colors, technique, difficulty, subject, realism, etc. Choose consciously and not on your entry.
The new subject week 10 “Light side / Dark side” has already started. The winner of this week’s “Rube Goldberg Machine” challenge may select a subject for next week 11 and win a badge.

Rube Goldberg machine

• mfortunato
  

  

• Srl1
  

  

[FedPete]

So much work! Well done both of you.

[NP5]

Mousetrap machine Made for an old Collab.

Mousetrap

[mfortunato]

That poor, unsuspecting mouse .
Your post made me want to hunt for an animation I’d done of a rube goldberg-like machine for a Maya class I took ages ago. I found the link:

RubeGoldberg_FinalAssignment.mp4

[NP5]

Very good, longer and more complicated!

[mfortunato]

I had more time as it was a class assignment . I only had a couple hours here and there for the collab.

[FedPete]

@Srl1 , congratulations on your complicated machine that sets a chain of events in motion until a final final test. It feels, to me, similar to the current political events in the world. A kind of Butterfly effect …

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Designing and developing a Rube Goldberg machine was a difficult assignment for the Blender Collab. It involves a lot of Blender 3D technology, such as animation and physics. Also planning the project became important. Both entries showed a lot of fun and inventiveness. Well done, to both entries.