Most people don’t remember much from the movie Wild, Wild West starring Will Smith except for the fact there was a giant steam-powered tarantula in it. That’s the kind of thing that makes an impression. When villains choose to express their villainy with some technological know how, it makes an impression. Not just in movies, either. Any machine that seems like they designed it for over the top, comic book level mayhem is pretty impressive.

10. Car Flamethrower

Protecting yourself and your property can take many forms. Sadly, we live in a world where sometimes this is necessary people will take what you paid money for or otherwise damage or harm you sometimes. So what can you do?

When it comes to cars and houses, most people opt for security systems. They’re usually easy to use and affordable and offer a level of protection that will keep most would-be thieves and ruffians at bay. But what happens if that’s not enough?

In the late 1990s, the Blaster was the answer to your car protection needs. A flamethrower that would cook anyone on either side of your vehicle to a cinder. 

In 1998, Charl Fourie made the BMW Blaster, a non-factory-standard security device for drivers in South Africa who wanted an added lethal level of security suitable for Dr. Doom. Fuel lines fed a pair of nozzles on either side of the car from the trunk. A foot button combined with a switch set them off, burning any would-be carjackers alive.

The device cost $650 and fired liquified petroleum gas for up to five meters, directed at the face level of anyone on the sides of the car. The device was not illegal in South Africa and in fact they sold a few hundred units. The high price tag was what kept most buyers away and the fact that various safety groups recommended against it not because they thought it was dangerously insane but because they felt it would just incite carjackers to murder people with gunfire from a safe distance. 

9. Killdozer

If a device is known by the name Killdozer, there’s no way it doesn’t have an interesting backstory. Marvin Heeymeyer’s Killdozer is one such vehicle and his story, well known enough that it had a movie made about it, is the stuff of pushed-to-the-edge legends.

Heemeyer’s story took place in Granby, Colorado, and started with a property dispute. He had sold some of his property to a concrete company. The city rezoned the land, and a factory was built, but it cut off Heemeyer’s access to his own property from his business. 

Fed up with how things were progressing, Heemeyer snapped. Using his skills as a welder, he began to manufacture an armor-plated bulldozer in his shop. The armor was homemade and incredibly effective. This was demonstrated later when he ran amok in the machine. Police gunfire proved useless against the Killdozer, and even small explosives seemed to be as effective as shooting a duck with a squirt gun.

Inside the bulldozer Heemeyer would be protected behind 3-inch bulletproof plastic and all the armor. Air conditioning kept him cool and TV monitors let him view the outside without exposing himself to danger. Several guns, including a .50 caliber rifle, were mounted outside. Police later said he had designed the Killdozer and the path of destruction he went on as a one-way ticket. Heemeyer never intended to survive.

Heemeyer literally plowed through the town, exacting revenge on everyone he felt had wronged him. The concrete factor, a judge, city hall, and numerous other homes and businesses. None could stand up to the brute force of his creation. He drove through them as though they were made of paper. 

In total he destroyed 13 buildings before getting himself stuck in a basement by accident. The governor had already authorized National Guard intervention at this point. Rather than let anything more play out, Heemeyer took his own life.

8. Euthanasia Machine

Once upon a time Dr. Jack Kevorkian was called Dr. Death in the press, and they said he had a killing machine he would bring to patients’ homes. This was actually just a portable set up to allow home euthanasia as the doctor crusaded on the belief that terminal patients deserved the right to choose when and how they would die. When it comes to an actual suicide machine, he has nothing on Philip Nitschke.

Nitschke is a doctor from the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been legal for some years. A major proponent of the practice, he was the first doctor in the country to administer a lethal dose to a patient who had requested it. And since then he has developed an honest to goodness suicide machine that is 3D printed and ready to end lives.

The device, called the Sarco, is essentially your own coffin. Hop inside and seal it so only you have control, no one could murder you with it. Liquid nitrogen, a substance readily available and legal, is pumped inside to replace oxygen. After getting a little woozy you would pass out and in several minutes death would occur. The idea is for it to be quick, painless, and easy. 

7. AI Machine Gun

In November 2020, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was shot dead. A senior official in Iran’s nuclear program, he was also a physicist and a brigadier-general in their armed forces. He was assassinated during a roadside ambush. But how the assassination was conducted raised some eyebrows.

It was machine gun fire that brought Fakhrizadeh down, but officials have said that his wife, seated next to him in a car, was amazingly unharmed. The accuracy of the gunman proved to be troubling until it was revealed there was no gunman at all.

Iran contends that the weapon was a machine gun mounted on a truck. It was fired autonomously, controlled by satellite-linked artificial intelligence. No human intervention required. 

Thirteen bullets were fired, all from the AI-controlled weapon. Four were directed at the victim’s head and his wife, less than a foot away, was not harmed at all. Initial reports said there was a gunfight with human assailants, but this was later changed.  

6. The DMZ Machine Gun Robot

The DMZ between North and South Korea is a 160 mile long stretch of land that no one is permitted to enter. The heavily guarded border has become something of a nature refuge in recent years, with many previously rare species taking up residence. But not everything there is natural.

Samsung has made the SGR-1 robots as part of DMZ security systems. These machine-gun wielding robots are autonomous security sentinels meant to keep the region empty of humans. One of the central DMZ outposts installed them in 2010 on a trial basis to see how reliable they’d be.

Using a variety of sensors like motion sensors, thermal sensors, and radar, the robots are able to detect anyone entering the zone who doesn’t belong there. Audio and video interface allow them to see who and what may be there, and deliver a warning or accept a security clearance through voice recognition. If it’s deemed necessary, the robots can then unload with 5.5mm machine guns and an automatic grenade launcher. They also make use of non-lethal deterrents like rubber bullets. 

The units are deployed now though their numbers are hard to come by. The 2010 trial run must have proved convincing, however. 

5. Lightning Gun

Some weapons just seem like they were designed to appeal to genre fans, and the lightning gun made at the Picatinny Arsenal fits the bill. Lightning, guided by a laser, traveled from the source of the laser to whatever it was targeting. Or, in layman’s terms, they made a lightning gun. 

The science was actually remarkably complex and involved the physics of light traveling through air, how plasma is produced, and how electrons can be stripped away. The big takeaway is that an enemy target, like a Jeep or a plane, is a much better conductor of electricity than the surrounding air. So you could direct lightning from the weapon to a target fairly easily. 

4.Sun Gun

At a certain point in most children’s lives, they gain access to a magnifying glass and discover what happens when you concentrate sunlight. Not only is this a simple way to burn dead leaves, it’s even been adapted to barbecue cooking with solar-powered grills. Leave it to the Nazis to have wanted to take this to a preposterous and villainous level.

Hermann Oberth, an honest to goodness rocket scientist, had a plan to assemble a giant mirror in space. This mirror would focus the rays of the sun onto the earth at whatever point the Nazis desired. Like a child killing ants, this beam would scorch the earth and any army beneath it. That was the plan, anyway. 

The plan was supposed to cost millions and take upwards of 15 years to complete. There was to be an accompanying space station with hydroponic gardens and solar generators. The plans were said to be quite detailed, though obviously nothing came of it. 

3. Bob Semple Tank

Imagine you’re tasked with trying to create a way to protect yourself from potential invaders. If some armed force were coming for you, your town and your family, what could you do? This is assuming the armed forces are either non-existent or tied up elsewhere and not able to help? If you’re New Zealand Minister of Works Bob Semple, you make a homemade tank. 

In the Second World War, New Zealand was feeling incredibly vulnerable. Japan was proving to be a force to be reckoned with and had expressed that New Zealand was a potential target. The country’s army was extremely small and with allies tied up all over the world with the war, no help would be coming if Japan invaded.  Semple set to work to find a way to defend his people.

The Bob Semple tank, as it came to be known, was a tank that he essentially slapped together Macgyver style from parts readily available. The base was a tractor, and the armor was corrugated manganese. There was no functional gun turret, and it was difficult to maneuver over uneven land. Firing on the move was all but impossible, and top speed was under 10 miles per hour.

Although history has been unkind to the tank and it was the subject of ridicule at the time, it showed what some ingenuity could come up with in a pinch. The armor was apparently quite effective, and outfitted with several machine guns they were certainly not machines anyone would have wanted to go toe to toe with. 

2. The Infernal Machine

You may not have heard of Giuseppe Marco Fieschi, but the man who attempted to assassinate King Louis-Phillipe of France back in 1835 greatly contributed to the history of utterly baffling weaponry.

Along with some co-conspirators, Fieischi, a man known to be a thief and in a relationship with his own stepdaughter, became a political radical and plotted the death of the king. To do this, Fieschi designed what he called the Infernal Machine, a gun with 25 barrels. 

They set the gun up in an apartment overlooking a street where the King was expected to make an appearance. Each barrel was loaded with numerous projectiles and primed for the assassination. When the king arrived, they deployed the weapon.

It didn’t work exactly as planned, and not every barrel fired. That said, it still proved to be nightmarishly effective. Though the king was relatively unharmed, over 400 projectiles exploded from the weapon and it killed 18 men. The king’s horse was also fatally wounded. 

1. Robot Soldiers

The Terminator has proven to be one of the most iconic sci-fi films and characters in movie history. A relentless killing machine from the future that, because it is not human, has no emotions, no reason, no fear. It can’t be stopped. The idea that robots will rise up and destroy us is a staple of the genre with examples that range from the Matrix to I, Robot and beyond. This pop culture influence has led many of us, rightly or wrongly, to cast any robot we see with a suspicious eye. And that’s why Atlas, from Boston Dynamics, is considered by many to be a creepy look at what’s to come. 

Most people know Boston Dynamics from their many videos featuring what look like robot dogs. These creations can be seen towing cars, opening doors and carrying gear for soldiers in the field. Every year it seems like the company has something slightly more advanced to offer. Something that looks smarter.

With Atlas, the company graduated to humanoid robots and that’s just an unsettling idea for many people. Whether it’s because of the uncanny valley and our brain simply not liking things that look human but obviously aren’t, or something more, the future bodes poorly for our ability to adjust to machines that can move like people but arguably can’t be killed.

Most of us try to accomplish necessary life tasks in the easiest way possible. Rube Goldberg, however, entertained the world by drawing cartoons of machines that accomplished simple tasks in the most complicated, humorous way possible.

His machines used everyday objects, in addition to humans or animals, in a creative, convoluted way that really would work. For example, his self-operating napkin machine wipes his fictional Professor Butt’s mouth automatically using a contraption that starts with the spoon to his mouth pulling a string, along the way throwing a cracker to a toucan, dropping a bucket, igniting a lighter which sets off a rocket, cutting another string that drops the napkin to his mouth to wipe it.

Goldberg lived from 1883 to 1970, but his cartoon inventions have inspired popular culture ever since. Let’s look at 10 places you might find a Rube Goldberg-inspired machine.

Related: 10 Times Computers Went Rogue

10 Board Games

Many board games have tried to capitalize on the popularity of Rube Goldberg machines. Some of these include Internal Contraption or Factory Fun.

The most iconic machine game, however, is the 1963 game Mouse Trap. Mouse Trap requires players to gradually build a contraption as they play the game and then finally using the contraption to catch a mouse playing piece. Steps along the way include a shoe kicking a bucket, a diver, and a bathtub. The original game box illustration looks much like Rube Goldberg’s cartoons, even using capital letters to designate steps in the machine, just as his cartoons did.

This game has been so popular that it even inspired a life-size version of the game that toured the United States and taught people about basic machines.^[1]

9 Computer Games and Apps

Computer games and apps have been inspired by these fun machines, sometimes without it even being the game’s intent. For example, one of many Goldberg machines built in Minecraft performs an enormous number of actions that alter the scenery before finally ending by blowing up a tower.

Other games were designed specifically for building Rube Goldberg machines, such as The Incredible Machine computer game or the official game, Rube Works Game. These games allow you to build your own machine to complete a challenging task of some kind. Typing “Rube Goldberg” into the Google Play or the App Store will bring up lots of games you can try, from educational to purely entertaining. In addition to these, many other games seem to be influenced by Rube Goldberg machines, such as Pull the Pin, Cut the Rope, and Fruit Ninja.^[2]

8 Fine Art

Goldberg himself created over 50,000 cartoons that included his crazy machines. Other artists have taken on the challenge and included Goldberg-type machines in their own artwork.

In some cases, the artwork clearly portrays a Goldberg machine. For example, Clint Hansen’s, A Simple Coffee Machine. Others are a little more abstract or surreal and just have Goldberg-like elements, like Vanessa Bates’s Klockwerk Orange Patent Pending or Mike Savad’s Steampunk—Coffee Break.

Some of the more recent artistic conceptions don’t even show a machine that works but instead express frustration, chaos, or other emotions about a topic in a machine-like way, as seen in Election Recap by Peter Kuper. This is a very Rube Goldberg-like cartoon on the first take, but looking closely, you can see that skips are stepped—alphabet letters are missing. There is no “A” telling us where to start or end. The egg on Uncle Sam’s face and various people booted out of the room express something about the election that we might feel.^[3]

7 YouTube

YouTube has been a perfect medium for people to share their homemade Goldberg machines. Some popular machines have been built for everyday tasks like turning pages, watering plants, and lighting Christmas trees.

One of the most popular machines on YouTube was created by OK Go, with their “This Too Shall Pass” machine. This one started with a toy truck knocking over dominos and included various devices starting music playing and individuals singing along its long path. Some of the most interesting additions to the machine were spoons playing water-filled glasses, a falling piano, a typewriter, a smashed television, and the grand finale—paintball guns firing at the singers.

Like many Rube Goldberg machines, this one can only be activated once—at least without rebuilding parts of it. ^[4]

6 Education

Rube Goldberg was, unsurprisingly, an engineer. Because the machines show interesting principles of engineering and physics, they are often used in education. An organization founded in Goldberg’s name offers lesson plans and contests, and many schools have students create Rube Goldberg machine-making projects.

In addition to teaching science principles, schools have used Rube Goldberg projects to teach project management and leadership. Building the machines are supposed to help with creativity and problem-solving skills, though some students have just claimed they learned a lot about what you can do “with random junk.” Regardless of why the machine is built, no one would deny that the process is fun.^[5]

5 Toys

Any toys that use chain reactions could be considered Rube Goldberg in style: marble runs or roller coasters, Lego contraptions, and domino chains. All of these trigger a chain reaction, the key Goldberg feature, from one little push, drop, or other action. A lot of different construction sets could be used to make crazy contraptions, even if that wasn’t their original intent.

But, of course, you don’t need a special product to make a Rube Goldberg contraption. Gather up anything you have around the house that moves or can be made to move. You can include objects that have various weights, string and rope, duct tape, broken pieces of toys, kitchen utensils, balloons, and anything laying around that seems to have no use. Search through the garage, the toy box, and the attic, and you will find all sorts of possible machine elements.

What can you trigger with a running blow dryer? What can you use to turn it on? How can you get a toy car rolling down a track? Anything you can think of is game.^[6]

4 Private Homes

Schools aren’t the only places making these contraptions. A lot of families make them at home. In fact, in 2020, during COVID quarantines, homemade Rube Goldberg machines became particularly popular on YouTube. Some took a humorous look at social distancing by creating machines to allow space for simple tasks like passing the salt across the table without getting near each other. One family made a complex machine throughout the house that ended with a foosball goal. I’m sure it was much more fun to make that one than to clean it up!

Making Rube Goldberg machines is a great way to entertain children when they aren’t in school. Just get them started with launching a teddy bear off the dresser by knocking over a stack of books with a nerf gun dart and see where they take it from there!

Of course, they don’t have to destroy your house with their contraptions; they can just draw them as Goldberg did. Some kids (or kids-at-heart) might enjoy this more because they can include elements they couldn’t practically create in real life—like a canary that sings when something pulls its tail feathers or a monster truck that triggers an avalanche, thereby chasing a giant snow-spider into a booby-trapped cave.^[7]

3 Sports

One of the most common final results of a Rube Goldberg machine is to make a basketball or other ball shot through a complex chain reaction of silly events. Even the Harlem Globetrotters have gotten into the contraption craze and made their own version.

Red Bull created an ad with their own sports machine that featured various famous athletes from skydiving to skateboarding and racecar driving. The stunt of each athlete triggers another stage of machines that releases the necessary sports equipment for the following athlete, blending human and machine in a balanced way.^[8]

2 Music

A few musicians have even invented music playing Rube Goldberg machines. One machine, for example, uses dropping marbles to make music. Another features various spinning components and strings that drop balls on piano keys to play a song. One of the most fun and complex Rube Goldberg music machines incorporates a variety of percussion instruments—drums, cymbals, chimes, and xylophones create a beautiful rhythmic melody as balls fly through the machine—with a little help from a computer.^[9]

1 Movies

Movies are a natural place for Rube Goldberg machines because they can best be enjoyed visually as the chain reaction unfolds. From Home Alone and Toy Story to The Goonies and Edward Scissorhands, wacky machines inspired by Rube Goldberg are all over the movies.

Some of the most memorable movie machines are breakfast machines, seen in such classics as Chitty, Chitty, Bang Bang, Back to the Future, and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. It’s the perfect nerdy-but-entertaining way for an eccentric character to prepare a meal.

A slightly less obvious Goldberg machine shows up near the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones triggers a death machine in a cave, triggered by removing an idol from its perch [LINK 35]. Ask yourself why removing the idol didn’t just cause instant death in a quick, decided way. Well, because Rube Goldberg machines are much more entertaining (plus, our hero needed a chance).^[10]

Keep your eyes open, and you’ll see these humorous machines everywhere!