An unlikely and absurdly designed machine intended to perform a simple function in the most complicated and indirect way. Named in honor of Reuben Lucius Goldberg (1883-1970), an engineer with the City of San Francisco Water and Sewers Department who became a Pulitzer-Prize winning cartoonist, sculptor and author. His long-running comic strip, "Inventions", displayed many such devices of his own design.

When you eat dirt for the first time and leave your family to build a shack in the woods

Unnecessarily complicated design or construction, to do something simple.

(Verb) To slack off for 4 weeks on a school project while the competition works for the entire time straigt. The night before the project is due have one group member take it home put some crap together and barely make a working project, the next day, at the big competition between many schools, your project wins first place while the other groups project crashes and burns. Your project later falls apart on the bus ride home.