Let’s Build a Life Sized “Rube Goldberg”

Let’s Build a Life Sized “Rube Goldberg”
Program Leaders: Bill Ballou and Susan Schwartz

Build a life-size Rube Goldberg style machine using everyday objects and chain reactions.

The famous cartoons by Rube Goldberg depicted machines doing simple things in unnecessarily convoluted ways, something like the board game “Mousetrap.” We will, as a group, construct a life-size “Rube Goldberg machine” using available materials and a lot of imagination (as well as principles of physics), to create amazing chain reactions with everyday objects. As a bonus, Susan will also teach mahjong some afternoons!

Bill has a background in film, TV and live theater construction, rigging and problem solving starting in the early 1970’s.  He has been a construction coordinator on many feature films, a technical director at REDCAT in Los Angeles and other theaters, and taught Technical Direction at California Institute of the Arts School of Theater. Susan is a career prosecutor who holds a degree in art business and has been making art of various kinds for years. Bill and Susan have collaborated on many art projects.