Rube Goldberg used to do these drawings of incredibly complicated mechanisms for doing trivial tasks. Like, to cook an egg, you might start by putting toast in the toaster, then when the toast is done it pops up and knocks over a delicately balanced ball, which rolls down a trough and bumps the switch to turn on the stove, then falls off onto the floor onto a see-saw gadget, which launches another ball into the air to strike a gong, which frightens a chicken which lays an egg which rolls down another trough to crash against a blade which breaks the egg and the contents fall into the pan to be cooked. His were actually better than that, but that is the best I can think of off the top of my head.
Have you ever seen the boardgame Mousetrap? I think that must have been inspired by a Rube Goldberg drawing.
A quick Google found a Rube Goldberg website with authorized images of some of this stuff, look
here.
His name came to be associated with the kind of gadgets he drew, so that anything like that might be called a Rube Goldberg device.
Taera, thanks for the confirmation. That is what I suspected.
SpaceBadger