Rube Goldberg machine

A Rube Goldberg machine is a complex, intentionally over-engineered contraption designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and convoluted way. Named after the cartoonist Rube Goldberg, who was known for his illustrations of such whimsical devices, these machines typically use a chain reaction of events, where one action sets off another in a series of steps that ultimately accomplish a straightforward goal.