Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1940, from the U.S. cartoonist Reuben Lucius Goldberg (1883-1970) who devised fantastically complex gadgetry to accomplish simple tasks. His British counterpart was Heath Robinson (1872-1944).
Wikipedia
He is best known for a series of popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways, similar to Heath Robinson devices in the UK, as well as the Storm P devices in Denmark. Goldberg received many honors in his lifetime, including a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948 and the Banshees' Silver Lady Award in 1959.
Goldberg was a founding member and the first president of the National Cartoonists Society, and he is the namesake of the Reuben Award, which the organization awards to the Cartoonist of the Year. He is the inspiration for various international competitions, known as Rube Goldberg Machine Contests, which challenge participants to make a complicated machine to perform a simple task.
Usage examples of "rube goldberg".
I've asked six of you people since I got here, and nobody can tell me who this `Rube Goldberg' fellow was supposed to have been.
I've asked six of you people since I got here, and nobody can tell me who this 'Rube Goldberg' fellow was supposed to have been.
Ive asked six of you people since I got here, and nobody can tell me who this Rube Goldberg fellow was supposed to have been.
That was entirely possible, because this rocket-and-capsule system was novel and had a lot of Rube Goldberg stuff in it.
It looks like a madman's conception of a skyscraper, a Rube Goldberg collection of chutes and cables and belts and platforms, everything run by the marching, staggering children who roll the belts and pull the great levers.
It flipped and she saw a man and a woman digging in the woods, the woman behind the controls of something that looked a little bit like a payloader and a little bit like something out of a Rube Goldberg cartoon, the man looping a chain around a stump.