This crazy contraption, created in 2011 by the Purdue Society of Professional Engineers, held the Guinness World Record for the largest Rube Goldberg Machine ever (before another team from Purdue smashed the record the next year.)
Named "Time Machine," the deliberately complicated device showed world history from the Big Bang to the impending apocalypse through 244 different steps lasting about 2 minutes.
Here are just a few of the highlights:
The device starts with the Big Bang when a ball drops down a ramp causing a popgun to fire.
Then we see evolution, where a rotating life form evolves as it crosses primordial ooze.
At one of the cleverest points, a ball falls through trap doors spotted with dinosaurs, flipping them over to reveal skeletons — an animated mass extinction. The team even added a crater-hole from the "asteroid."
In the Ice Age, a tiny human figurine slides down a ramp, thus killing a less tiny Mammoth figurine.
Seconds later, a winding spool pulls some strings to construct the miraculous pyramids in Egypt.
In the Medieval Era, a fan propels a ship across a wooden sea. It eventually falls off the edge, reminiscent of the Middle Ages' view that the world was flat.
Then, a plane on a zip line drops a bomb during World War II.
Below, a U.S. rockstship reaches the moon, causing a revolving apparatus to power a light bulb — which made Russia incredibly jealous.
And then during the Technical Revolution, a makeshift mini-TV scrolls through pop culture icons.
Lastly, the apocalypse comes. The entire machine starts "smoking" and a black curtain ascends.
But there's still hope. A mystery box appears.
Ater watering, a tiny flower grows from the top — much like in the Lorax or WALL-E.
