Introducing, the latest in the Rube Goldberg family of books I'm lucky enough to be the illustrator for:
Why Yes, I AM selling signed & personalized copies, so glad you asked!
This one's unlike any book I've illustrated before. And not just because there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 400+ original illustrations by me throughout, this is THE most comprehensive yet somehow hilarious How-To books I've ever seen.
Technically an activity book, Rube Goldberg's Big Book of Building walks you step-by-step through the creation of 25 Rube Goldberg machines that 1) utilize stuff you probably have lying around the house, and 2) that actually work!
Zach Umperovitch is a master Rube Machine builder (yes, that's a real thing), whose credits include commercials, music videos, hosting TV shows, etc, and now book author. Check out his site by clicking here, but be warned, your productivity will severely plummet for the rest of the day. Zach understands Rube Goldberg machines, and there's no one better to have taken on this monumental feat.
The whole thing was the brainchild of Jennifer George, who at once is Rube Goldberg's granddaughter as well as so much more than just being Rube Goldberg's granddaughter. Jennifer heads up the Rube Goldberg Institute for Innovation and Creativity, and any organization with a name that long can only do good things! She's the one who made this book happen (and all previous books, for that matter), and is a force to be reckoned with.
For this book, Zach was tasked with coming up with 25 machines, ranging in difficulty from 'Easy' to 'We're Going to Take UP the Entire Yard Difficult', which alone would be tough enough. But not only did he write and compose the machines (yes, if you're building a Rube machine, you're essentially telling a story), he took the time to painstakingly build each machine, perfecting each through trial and error then actually FILMED EACH MACHINE RUNNING, simultaneously NARRATING THE MACHINE RUNNING!
The result: every machine in this book comes complete with precise, tested and proven instructions on what you need for that machine, what machine parts can be substituted if necessary, incredibly detailed walkthroughs of the set up of each machine as well as an equally detailed walkthrough of the execution/run of each machine, with every step illustrated to leave no room for doubt by the reader. All of this is topped off with a QR code that links directly to a high quality video of that machine built as it's laid out in the book, narrated and running, working the way it's meant to work.
Pepper in a healthy amount of jokes, fun facts, tips & tricks, I really can't believe this much content is available in one volume of anything. It really is a great book, and I'm not saying that because I all the art. I have a hunch this book is really going to be a staple in the STEM/STEAM world, with good reason.
It really IS a great book- not because I did so much work for it- but because the right people worked on it, and it was made with right amount of heart and love.
Go get yours- I promise, you will be impressed. And, the STEM/STEAM crowd I'm quite sure will make this a mandatory bookshelf 'have'.
This is the first machine in the book and by far the easiest. Jus' sayin'!