Rube Goldberg Tea Bag Dunking Machine

This Rube Goldberg machine was created as part of a team-building event where I work.

The assigned task was to dunk a tea bag. The point of a "Rube Goldberg Machine" is to do a simple task in as complicated a way as possible.

In case it's hard to see or follow some of it, here is the sequence:

1) A cassette player plays a duck quacking sound through an audio amplifier.

2) The amplified audio causes a speaker to move up and down.

3) The moving speaker causes some pennies on a ramp to slide down to the bottom, causing the ramp to tip.

4) A weighted duck on the ramp slides off the end and into a bucket.

5) The bucket pulls on a string, which turns a winch.

6) The winch turns the handle of a jack-in-the-box.

7) When the jack-in-the-box lid pops open, a weighted duck rolls down a short ramp and runs into a softball.

8) The softball rolls down a long ramp and runs into a bowling ball.

9) The bowling ball falls on an air pump.

10) The air from the air pump inflates a balloon.

11) The balloon tips a ramp, causing another weighted duck to roll off the end.

12) The falling duck pulls on a string that causes a pulley to turn.

13) The turning pulley tips a tube full of ping-pong balls and closes a mercury switch to start a fan.

14) The ping-pong balls roll down a tube until they land on the rotating fan.

15) The rotating fan knocks the ping-pong balls up a ramp until at least one of them goes into another tube.

16) The ball going into the tube blocks an electric eye.

17) The blocking of the electric eye triggers a train car carrying a tea cup along a track and also starts a motor which dunks a tea bag.

18) When the train car reaches the area under the tea bag, the electric signal on the track is interrupted and the tea cup stops, with the tea bag dunking in it.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Rube
• Goldberg
• tea
• bag
• team
• building
• Team Building
• Tea Bag

[9ofpentacles]

who has enough time to waste making this?

[waltersbg]

The fact that it appears to be a waste of time is kind of the whole point. A Rube Goldberg machine is not supposed to be reasonable. I've never seen one that *didn't* look like a waste of time!

It was done as a team building exercise, so not really a waste of time at any rate.

[Schlermie]

I built one of these, but my tea still tasted the same. I can't recommend this design.

[generalwaffles1]

the title sounds so suggestive

[qtangel100]

Lmfao i see how you managed to dunk your teabag into the cup of hot water . But uh isnt the tea bag suppose to stay into the hot water .. Oh well nicely done

[MrBetterguy]

lol



[crazyknexkid]

awesome!!!! i loved the fan ball part!!

[walterswdf2]

This is precisely why real people drink coffee.