Most Useless Feats of Engineering

today's video is brought to you by the ridged wallet and also the key case more on them in just a bit today you're going to discover the strange and fascinating world of engineering Marvels that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever from the do nothing machine a mesmerizing display of gears and pistons that does absolutely nothing it's shocking we know to the world's largest Rube Goldberg device you're going to witness the Ingenuity of human creatives who have absolutely wasted a ton of their time and created something pointless which sort of makes this video pointless doesn't it but please keep watching let's go ha Bruno manaria was born in Milan Italy in 1907 he came from a family of Engineers and futurists and so he too was an inventor and a futurist at least for a while but by his late 30s manari began moving away from the traditional ideals of futurism to start Italian futurism was closely associated with fascism a connection he preferred to avoid sensible man global politics is rarely cause enough to stop scientific Pursuits of invention and Innovation but manari had another concern while his predecessors had endless enthusiasm for technology and machines could make possible minari saw them as a threat he envisioned a world in which machines ruled over us all and he sought to counter this threat in the only way he could by building useless machines that would be seen as works of art struggling to collect your logic there mate to be honest monari designed many different useless machines over the course of his life but the most famous design and the one that is referred to as the useless machine came in 1952 from MIT Professor Marvin Minsky who was in inspired by minari's work there have been many variations to Minsky's original design but the fundamental concept remained the same the useless machine is an electronic device usually powered by some regular double-a batteries from the outside it looks like an ordinary plastic or wooden box with a switch on it when the switch is turned on the box will pop open slightly allowing a mechanical hand or lever to turn the switch back off and that's the only thing it does these machines have become extremely popular and board Engineers have upgraded the original design alternate designs can be seen featuring several different switches for the device to turn off or one machine with two hands to flip the switch back and forth you can even find a useless machine shaped like a coffin that uses a zombie hand to turn the switch off while the useless machine may not have been designed with any practical purpose in mind it has accomplished one actual goal and that's making some money these machines are readily available and you can purchase either a complete working machine or a kit to build your own you've got to have so much time on your hands if you're up to this also what's the guy from MIT doing doing this you're from MIT go like figure out what was before the Big Bang or something come on [Music] have you ever wished you could flip on your turntable and have your novelty neon sign light up at the same time of course not few people actually own a turntable these days and even fewer have their own novelty neon sign in the unlikely event that you actually wanted to be able to turn on a record player and a light at the same time the sensible thing would be to just hook them up to the same switch but why do the sensible thing when you can create the world's largest Rube Goldberg machine instead named after American cartoonist and inventor Rube Goldberg who was famous for drawing these Contraptions the point of these machines is to perform a simple task in the most indirect and overly complicated way possible if you've ever seen the board game mouse trap it's like that except generally much much more complicated it seems that every few years there's a new record for the largest Rube Goldberg machine and the most recent winners were Chevrolet Menlo Wang ji Chi and Juan Yang from China was that dude's name Chevrolet okay these machines began by powering on a turntable with a piece of string attached to it as it turned out the string was pulled towards until it released a ball beginning a chain action of 427 different steps that took longer than four minutes to complete the machine consisted primarily of strings ball bearings dominoes and springs in order to keep the action going while that is the largest in terms of mechanical steps the previous record holder was arguably a more impressive visual site constructed by the company scandiweb in regalatvia their 412-step machine took over 10 minutes from start to finish and it occupied the company's entire office building as well as an area outside why is the company doing this the mayor of rigor in a representative from scandi web stood outside next to the city's Christmas tree and simultaneously pressed a button to turn the machine on the first step began inside the building but their setup was far more like what might be imagined by a cartoonist some of the items involved in the mechanical steps included a leaf blower an umbrella a dartboard rubber ducks boxing gloves a microwave a coffee maker and a tennis racket and the list truly does go on it's like 400 long after the various steps of the machine made their way through the entire building the final step inside the building powered on a sound meter located outside that would only trigger the remaining steps if the audience was cheering loudly enough a few wooden trees and oversized presence later and a sled carrying a snowman slid down a ramp with the broom the Snowman was holding hitting the final button to light up the city's Christmas tree sure the mayor could have just pressed the button to turn the tree on in the first place as it was only a few feet from where I've been standing but well where's the fun in that so just before we continue today's video let me tell you about a fantastic sponsor Ridge wallet look have you ever been frustrated 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you can save up to 40 on your purchase through March 26th so whether you're out and about traveling or just want to declutter to your wallet the ridge wallet has got you covered so check out their best offer at ridge.com side projects and save up to 40 on your purchase through March 26th that's ridge.com side projects and now back to today's video thank you without any context it's hard to imagine an in-state Highway being useless highways are important parts of modern life even for people who spend their whole life in a small area the existence of interstate highways is vital for the shipments of goods across the country so how exactly could an interstate be considered useless well to start despite being called an interstate highway the road is located entirely in Hawaii on the island of Oahu it's also only 16 miles that's 26 kilometers long and it has seven exits construction began in 1989 and this relatively short stretch of road took eight years and 1.3 billion dollars to complete or over 2 billion dollars in today's money on a cost per mile basis this made it the most expensive Highway in the entire world it's useless the project was originally proposed in 1960 as a way to connect Pearl Harbor with a Marine Corps base on the island however environmental laws prevented the road from being constructed it wasn't until 1989 when these restrictions were lifted because the environment the construction to finally begin albeit amidst great controversy and with many protests in addition to the environmental concerns the planned route for the highway included the destruction of many native Hawaiian religious and cultural sites including some ancient petroglyphs while the road was slightly re-routed in the end construction went largely as planned H3 passes through a large Valley and a mountain and its construction and navigation through the difficult terrain is truly an incredible work of modern engineering not only is the highway itself a sight to behold but it offers an incredibly picturesque view of the island not counting the parts that were destroyed to you know build it but while those views are incredible the fact that the road offers views of nature rather than cityscapes is also a bit of the problem having the road connecting Pearl Harbor and the Marine Corps Base may have seemed necessary in 1960 but by the time construction began in 1989 it could no longer be viewed as an important project for National Defense without that utility it's no wonder that the highway has been nicknamed the road to Nowhere a 2 billion dollar Road to Nowhere Oahu has a population of just over a million people with almost half of those living in Honolulu but interstate H3 doesn't even go to downtown Honolulu it doesn't really go anywhere some travel sites try to build that as a feature not a bug saying you can enjoy the view as you drive down the road to nowhere then turn around and drive back to where you started while they try to promote it as a relaxing way to pass some time it is a useless Road to Nowhere and also the world's most expensive Highway Nick if you follow our sister Channel Mega projects which you absolutely should go and subscribe you may have seen a video we did on there called Yucca Mountain for those of you who haven't you're about to learn why Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is regarded as one of the most useless Mega projects in the entire world in the 1980s concerns started to mount about what to do with the increasing amount of Highly radioactive spent fuel that was being created by nuclear power plants in the United States several different locations were selected for the study but in 1987 Yucca Mountain which was adjacent to the nuclear test sites in Nevada was deemed to be the best possible option the idea of the project was simple even if the execution would be ridiculously insanely complicated one of the proposed ways to handle nuclear waste was deep borehole small but extremely deep holes into which nuclear waste could just be thrown it was later decided that instead of digging lots of little holes they could just build one giant hole deep into Nevada's Yucca Mountain which could house massive amounts of nuclear waste in one location unfortunately boring a giant hole into the side of a mountain is not cheap and it is not easy the tunnel Boring Machine alone cost 13 million dollars this machine was an incredible 400 feet long when it was in operation and that was just one piece of equipment that was used the plan was to make a facility that was capable of storing 300 million pounds of nuclear waste but it was just never finished despite being approved by the federal government in 1987 construction didn't begin until 2002. the entire project has been the subject of criticism most notably from the state of Nevada who referred to the government's plan as the screw Nevada Bill there isn't a single nuclear power plant in all of Nevada so the people there were not very happy about being designated as the nation's nuclear landfill between pushback from Nevada and difficulties in funding the project was never finished and most likely never will be there are images of the main tunnel from when the project was still active and they are truly remarkable to be able to construct such a massive tunnel into the side of a mountain is a spectacular feat of modern engineering even if it's a totally pointless one now as of 2016 the project has been abandoned and the tunnel has been boarded up the United States invested nine billion on the project which is 12 billion dollars today but changes to the original design mean it would cost another 90 billion dollars to finish and there are currently no plans in place to do that while the work is that has been done is a Marvel of engineering it is also a 12 billion dollar hole in the ground which they just boarded up and padlock shut all of the other Feats of engineering that we've discussed in today's episode had a purpose well enter the picture the do nothing machine a machine that was literally designed to do nothing the machine could be turned on and it would operate but there isn't actually any end goal that it's attempting to achieve the two-nothing machine was the brainchild of retired clockmaker Lawrence wallstrom he had several other jobs in addition to being a clock maker or one of which was a job in the newspaper industry it is perhaps there that he came to the realization that the public prefers to be entertained rather than educated I've been doing it all wrong wallstrom's project began sometime around 1948 when he discovered a complicated clump of gears at a northern bomb site from World War one he had a fascination with gear so he decided to see if he could get the remnants of whatever machine he had found working again he succeeded but this was only the beginning reports vary on how long the project took with estimates ranging from 7 to 15 years his plan was to add at least 50 gears to the machine every year and the parts could come from anywhere in addition to what he had found on the bomb site the do-nothing machine includes parts from a motorcycle a slot machine just to name a couple the device kept growing year after year by 1953 it was gaining national attention the do-nothing machine was featured not only in Industry magazines like Popular Mechanics and mechanics Illustrated but even in Life Magazine anytime wallstrom was pressed to the actual purposes of invention he would give the joke answer and say that it was a flying saucer attacked her by the time it was completed the do-nothing machine contained 764 Gears of various sizes and shapes in addition to pistons and other various moving Parts when it's turned on the machine is a rather impressive sight one part of the machine features a circular gear rotating a square which is rotating an ovular gear all 764 gears rotate in unison with chains being bold and pistons firing and none of it does anything but wallstrom was absolutely correct that people prefer to be entertained rather than educated if he had used the broken gears it found on the bomb side as the foundation of some sort of academic paper or class on repairs there's a good chance that none of us would have ever heard his name and now you have it's been exactly 70 years since the creation was first unveiled to the public and his machine is still working and on display today doing exactly what it was built for absolutely nothing [Music]

Channel: Sideprojects

Views: 259,122

Keywords: megaprojects, construction, engineering, projects, sideprojects, most useless megaprojects, biggest construction mistakes of all time, largest construction projects in the world, megaprojects in the world, useless, tallest abandoned skyscraper, designers who should go to hell for their ideas, failed megaprojects, biggest megaprojects, mega construction, silly construction, useless megaprojects

Id: 9NjRH8N8boM

Length: 14min 26sec (866 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 21 2023