2. By John Blake and Austin

3.  Rube Goldberg was born in San Francisco in 1883.  He worked as an engineer for the city but liked being a cartoonist better so he started doing that instead.  He made many comics for newspapers, including Rube Goldberg’s Inventions which was his most famous comic.

4.  A simple machine is one of six machines from which all other complex machines are made.  The six machines are the lever, inclined plane, wedge, pulley, screw, and wheel and axle.  Each machine has its own specific functions that give it a mechanical advantage.

5.  A Rube Goldberg contraption is a machine that is often overly large and convoluted and is used to do a simple task.  Rube Goldberg used them in his cartoons, and then people started to make real ones.  Often the machines take hundreds of practices to get exactly right.

8. HHis full name was Rueben Garret Lucius Goldberg. HHe was married to Irma Seeman and had two sons, Thomas and George. HHe died in 1970. TTo see a Rube Goldberg Contraption go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=RouXygRc RC4