This Rube Goldberg Machine Is a Treat to Watch from Start Till End

In most cases, guiding your life based on this principle is a sound idea. But watch this one-minute-long advertising spot for Arrow down below, and then try to imagine what it would have looked like if the above theory had been applied. It would have been short and also crap.

The people behind the ad probably thought that enough time has passed since Honda’s award-winning commercial that featured a similar Rube Goldberg machine - a device that performs a simple task in an unnecessarily complicated fashion, usually involving a chain reaction - and decided to come up with one of their own.

Well, Honda will always be the brand associated with this sort of contraptions in the advertising world, but the good news is that even though the ad isn’t particularly innovative, at least it’s very well made. And seeing one of these machines in action always makes for a special occasion.

The closest I could get to building something like this was making a domino out of packets of cigarettes that stretched from my room all the way to the living room, and let’s just say I didn’t live in a very big house. Yet, I thought it was great and once I had finished it, I hesitated for hours before knocking over that first piece. Can’t imagine what it’s like with something of this scale that also involves pyrotechnics (I’m talking about the airbag here).

But the real icing on the cake here is the ending. Low tech suddenly makes way for the essence of modern-day high tech (the smartphone) and something we all like to see, no matter the excuse (a race car pulling away from the start line).