OK Go's new music video, featuring an insane Rube Goldberg machine

For anyone who's never tried: Building Rube Goldberg machines is insanely hard. The idea is to build a machine that looks as difficult and improbable as possible. Pieces that are destroyed or completely changed during the operation are par for the course. For each run, the entire machine needs to be reset manually. If one piece fails, you have to reset the whole thing.<p>The whole design process is basically fighting against yourself--how insane and ridiculous can I get and still have the thing work.<p>tl;dr We lost the Rube Goldberg machine contest and I'm still bitter.

Something else to note is that OK Go got its way with the label, and this video is embeddable.<p>For reference, see <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060736" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1060736</a>

Also must-see when discussing commercial Rube Goldberg devices: Honda's "Cog" commercial at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYabfifhEPE" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYabfifhEPE</a><p>(Interesting in part because of how trivial it is to translate to different language.)

Dear Lord. I can't even set up a few Dominoes without knocking them over accidentally. Imagine setting up some of the massive contraptions they did in this video. Accidental set-off could literally kill someone.

On the first couple views I thought it had a cut while they reset the room---then I noticed that when they do the coloured fluid opening the drape they're actually going down a shaft to a different floor, and you can definitely see everything set up if you look for it. I think this might have actually been all one take (there certainly are enough destroyed TVs in the background to make this plausible!)<p>Wow.

The guys who made the Rube Goldberg machine are brilliant hackers based in LA: <a href="http://syynlabs.com/" rel="nofollow">http://syynlabs.com/</a>

Apart from the machine itself, I love the camera work. It seems that:<p>- it (most likely) had to be a person, not a simple arm with camera, to pass through tunnels, etc. (yet the movement is really soft)<p>- the person had to keep avoiding strings along the way, which I imagine was quite hard while keeping the view on current action

You should also see: Der Lauf Der Dinge (The Way Things Go). Which is a 30-minute long Rube Goldberg machine, although filmed in several stitched takes. It's really interesting as well as it also includes chemical reacting stuff.<p>Here's a part of that movie: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrRC3pfLnE" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXrRC3pfLnE</a>

How the Rube Goldberg machine Was Built: <a href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/ok-go-rube-goldberg/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/ok-go-rube-goldberg/</a>

Starting at 2:30 the music is timed perfectly with the banners. Certainly the machine's timing was not that precise. How they were able to keep it synced up? It's impressive that a machine that looks so rickety still works.

I'd really like to build one of these that plays music by itself (the sound of the machine operating plays a recognizable tune). similar to this (self playing super mario world):<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXmNjB4-JdE" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXmNjB4-JdE</a><p>this would be an order of magnitude more difficult than a regular RG machine in meatspace as the timing has to be precise.

What does Synn labs DO? This is amazing. I don't think anything I've ever done could possibly be as hard as that shot.

I've never noticed a youtube video before that was offered in 1080p. Great picture and it loaded quickly too. Although there were a few hiccups in the video during quick pans.

Details about the video:<p><a href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/ok-go-rube-goldberg/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/03/ok-go-rube-goldberg/</a>

The Making Of videos are great as well.

I love PeeWee Herman-esque machines, used to try and make them all the time out of Meccano when I was a kid :)<p>Laughed when I saw all the broken TVs against the wall too :D

the video is cool and all but does anyone like the music? seems to get lost to me... i guess it's really not about the music though. not one comment before mine even mentioned it...<p>again awesome video but it's going to be hard for them to keep topping themselves but now it's their MO

The bullseye was the kicker! Great video.

Hmm OK Go seems to have broken YouTube

That was awesome.