Viral Video: How to Zip a Zipper With Gumballs, Silly String and a Shark

ABC late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel knows a thing or two about making funny viral videos.

But he didn’t need to do much for this one — a demo of the Rube Goldberg machine that won a recent intercollegiate competition.

The intentionally inefficient machine, “A Simple Way to Get Ready For Work,” was made by an adorkable team from Purdue University. “Jimmy Kimmel Live” regular and former parking lot security guard Guillermo Rodriguez makes himself a willing guinea pig as the over-engineered contraption progresses from sending a gumball down a ramp to (eventually) zipping up his jacket.

Here’s the video of the Kimmel demo, and below it a video of the contest’s second-place finisher, from Washington University in St. Louis. The Purdue team’s machine gets rolling at around three minutes in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF3nV0r87v8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nug-347xuac

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you join us?

Our biggest supporters are our readers — and we’re so grateful to everyone who has made a contribution during our September campaign. We’re less than 1,000 contributions away from reaching our goal for the month, which in turn will allow us to say yes more often when our incredible journalists come to us with questions they want to answer and projects they want to pursue. Will you make a contribution before the month ends and support our policy coverage through 2024 and beyond?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via