Rube Goldberg was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, and engineer born in 1883 who is known for creating overly complex machines to perform simple tasks. He inspired an annual contest called the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest where participants design complicated contraptions to accomplish things like opening a door. Goldberg graduated with an engineering degree but later became a cartoonist, winning a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartoons that satirized technology and portrayed it as needlessly complex.