Science & Tech

This Rube Goldberg Lunch Machine Fills Your Face With Food

by Matthew Hart
Oct 4 2018 • 10:28 AM

We all know the trouble with working on a computer while trying to eat. Do you take a bite and then type? Do you oscillate between two minutes working and two minutes eating? And how exactly are you supposed to wipe your fingers so frequently? If these questions have been plaguing you, then it could be time to try out this Rube GoldbergOpens in a new tab “Lunch Feeder.” It may take forever to set up, but at least it won’t get crumbs in your keyboard. (j/k: it probably will.)The Rube Goldberg Lunch Feeder, which comes via Laughing SquidOpens in a new tab, is the obscenely circuitous brainchild of Joseph HerscherOpens in a new tab, the R.G. machine master who first went viral all the way back in 2008. Since then, Herscher has been a nonstop machine of making Rube Goldberg machines. It’s a vicious cycle, but dang it, it’s an entertaining one.

Youtube Video play button
The way Herscher’s contraptions execute the simplest of mundane tasks is not only a testament to the idea of the Rube Goldberg machine, but also a nice analog parallel to Simone Giertz’s ultra-crappy machines that feed you soupOpens in a new tab and wash your hairOpens in a new tab.Finally, on an unrelated side note that needs to be uttered thanks to its massive TIL value, did you know that in the UK, Rube Goldberg machines are known as Heath Robinson Devices? Herscher notes on his home pageOpens in a new tab that they were named after the UK’s own cartoonist who (independently of Goldberg) also drew eccentric machines. It’s a small world rolling down a long plastic track that leads to a fire that ignites a rocket that rings your doorbell after all. 

What do you think about this Lunch Feeder? Would you have the patience to set up this bad boy? Let us know in the comments!

Images: YouTube/Joseph’s MachinesOpens in a new tab