Video: Rube Goldberg Machine Record

The Purdue Society of Professional Engineers team smashed its own Guinness world record for the world's largest Rube Goldberg machine with a 300-step behemoth that flawlessly accomplished the simple task of blowing up and popping a balloon. The machine debuted at the 25th annual Rube Goldberg Machine Contest at Purdue University. The team’s entry in last year’s contest, a 244 step machine, was the previous world record holder.

The team spent more than 5,000 hours constructing the machine that accomplished every task ever assigned in the competition's 25-year history, including peeling an apple, juicing an orange, toasting bread, making a hamburger, changing a light bulb, loading a CD and sharpening a pencil.

Project: Google Art

Google Art Project Expands

Last February, Google launched Art Project, a service that lets users take a virtual tour of one thousand works of art from seventeen top notch great museums, including the MoMA and Met in New York City, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and much, much more.

Now, Google is announcing that Art Project is expanded its coverage, giving users access to another 30,000 high-resolution artworks from 151 museums across 40 countries. The virtual tour includes paintings as well as sculptures, street art and photographs. And you can now explore collections (see all) from the National Gallery of Modern Art in Delhi, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar, the Museu De Arte Moderna De São Paulo in Brazil, and the Tokyo National Museum. This is all part of Google’s effort to bring cultural artifacts to the broadest possible audience. All we can say is keep it coming!