Michigan Team Appears To Fall Short In Attempt To Make Record-Breaking Rube Goldberg Machine

DETROIT (AP) — A team at the Michigan Science Center in Detroit appears to have fallen short of building the world's largest chain reaction machine.

Lead builder Steve Price says while the machine ran from start to finish, some individual sections failed — which he believes meant there weren't enough completed steps to break the record. Organizers are still awaiting a Guinness World Records review.

The machine activated Saturday featured about a half-million objects, including about 200,000 dominoes and other components including ping pong balls, Hot Wheels tracks and blocks.

Organizers say the Guinness mark for a Rube Goldberg machine had 300 steps. Price says his machine had between 400 and 500, but the number likely fell below 200 after the failures meant backup sections had to run.