Rube Goldberg machine

[echo65]

I was watching youtube videos of Rube Goldberg machines earlier and it somewhat inspired me to experiment and try a Rube Goldberg machine thread.

For some background info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kvdq8cRNBM

So the way it's supposed to work is I'll post a starting action in the sequence to start the machine off and successive posts will extend the machine.
(ex: I flip a switch -> which turns on a speeding RC car -> which collides with a pressure switch launching -> a rocket that explodes at the ceiling -> igniting a fuse -> etc.) At some point the machine will perform it's end task: cooking ramen noodles or playing a CD or turning on an xbox...
(P.S. any suggestions on thread welcome)

So I'll start off with:

Flip a switch which kick flips a glass off a table ->

[Mishy]

Do we join in? I'm confused. If so

-> Flips the table upside town

[LordXenophon]

...and the glass lands on the blade of a shovel. The other end of the shovel is holding down the string on a helium balloon, which is released when that end of the shovel rises, and now the balloon starts to rise ->

My favorite Rube Goldberg machine was in a car commercial. I don't have a URL and I can't remember what car, but the entire machine was made out of car parts and the end result was that it started a car, while at the same time tilting the platform on which the car rested so that the car rolled out of the garage. It was two full minutes long. I only ever saw it once, during a Super Bowl.

[Mishy]

I remember that Car commercial! they showed in Australia a couple of times

[LordXenophon]

You're supposed to respond by describing what happens when my balloon rises, thus keeping the machine going. Since you didn't, I will, just this once...

Above the balloon is a lever with an upside-down wicker basket on the end. As the balloon rises, it enters the basket and lifts the lever ->

That's how the game works. Keep the machine going.

[Mishy]

Sorry i zoned out when i posted lol and i get how the game works via my first post duh lol

That causes a ball to roll down a hill and tap a rock which ->

[echo65]

Knocks over the first domino in a chain that continues out the door and on for 3 miles into a warehouse and up a ramp. The last domino, being sided with a copper plate, falls onto two wires completing a circuit which ->

Also. 100 posts ftw! Yeah this thread is definitely an experiment in that I haven't seen it anywhere else and I was not quite sure how to implement the idea. Like I said: open to suggestions.

[dowekeller]

turns on a hot plate heating up a kettle of water building up steam until it dislodges a cork that was stuffed into its spout ->

Great idea BTW Echo65, I love complex machinery and cooperative narrative.

[Mishy]

The cork goes flying into a switch that flips on and makes a lightbulb flash on that makes a marble roll into a - >

[LordXenophon]

funnel. It swirls around and around in the funnel until it falls through the hole at the bottom, dropping onto ->