An exercise of both political and electronic critique, the Rube Goldberg Voting Machine was a functional piece of artwork with strong concepts and collaboration.

Each student of the electronic programming class was given a 1' x 1' cube and in some cases two, to build a modular piece of an eventual voting machine. The piece must receive a vote, A or B, process the vote in its unique way, and pass on the vote to the following piece. This project involved interfacing electronics with code, but more importantly, electronics with other electronics.

My cube was a commentary on the evolution of the voting machine, utilizing one of the first methods to electronically count votes (the conductivity of lead marked on a scantron) to pass the vote on to the next module through the pencil. A pencil mounted on a servo rotates and eases into position with two copper contacts and passes the signal on.

I also worked with Fei Liu and Megan Daalder to create a seamless transition from leveraged meat, to conductive contacts, to a station changing radio that turns on to give us just enough out of context commentary.

The absurdity of our voting machine might not seem so absurd when we had a comparable accuracy percentage to a certified machine.

Rube Goldberg Voting Machine from Mary Huang on Vimeo.