In a pile of K'NEX, fidget spinners, marbles, and other various objects scattered around his room, Gabe Neise sees inspiration, potential, and a challenge waiting to be solved. The 2024 electrical engineering alumnus dedicates hours to carefully crafting and designing a creation, which he then meticulously films until all the pieces align.

Neise is a creator of Rube Goldberg chain reaction machines. As the name implies, his machines rely on a series of chain reactions after an initial trigger: a ball rolls into a domino, which pushes a lever, which sets another ball free to roll into a set of fidget spinners, and so on. 

"My machines are less focused on the objects being used and more focused on what they're doing," he explained.

Under the username "Sirgabealot G," Neise uploads videos of his machines to YouTube. He's amassed quite a following - nearly 4,000 subscribers – and has done work for multiple museums, several companies, Riley Hospital for Children, and the independent film, “What Lies Inside,” released in 2020. 

Neise is part of communities of machine creators from around the world. He hosts "Machine Multiverse" annually, an online event where builders in the community come together to create their own separate machines and videos that are merged together to form one continuous chain in the final product.

"It's a great demonstration of the different styles and the creativity and artistry within the chain reaction community," Neise said.

Neise learned at a young age that something as seemingly simple as watching one of these YouTube videos can create a domino effect that alters the course of a life.  When he was a child, Neise's parents showed him a video of another creator's machines, and he was immediately enthralled. Neise quickly began experimenting with building his own machines, using toys he had around the house. Chasing the thrill of a successful result of his tinkering ultimately led Neise to engineering and to Rose-Hulman as a Noblitt Scholar.

"My passion for engineering was really sparked by these machines," he said. "I learned from building these machines that I had an engineering mindset." 

For Neise, all the pieces of his story have been falling into place for years. As a high school senior, he spoke to Rose-Hulman representatives at a college recruiting event hosted by Eli Lilly and Company. After completing an internship there in 2023, the Rose-Hulman alumnus now works full time as an automation engineer at Eli Lilly in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

Neise also grew up enchanted by an exhibit at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis that featured a machine utilizing billiard balls. Last year, Neise hosted his own event at the Terre Haute Children's Museum that allowed kids to interact with his machines. He hopes to one day host a program in Indianapolis as well.

"When my parents would take me to The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, I'd just go straight to that machine," he said.

The kids at Neise's event in Terre Haute expressed a similar enthusiasm for experimenting with the mechanisms on the table. "One kid asked me to run the machine over and over again," Neise smiled. 

Running the machines is a manifestation of immense skill and patience. The only way to test the success of the reaction is through trial and error, so Neise is constantly resetting and repositioning the machine elements. The construction of the creations can take months: Neise's largest machine to date took several months of design, 461 failed attempts, and consumed the majority of his basement.

"Unlike school where you approach problems with a straightforward procedure to approach a predetermined solution, in the realm where engineering meets art, there is no one right or wrong way to make something," Neise said. "It's about figuring out how to take an idea and add a new twist to it to keep it unique and interesting." 

His own life is testament to that: in watching videos of other machines, Neise saw a path for himself that was uniquely his own. Through a series of seemingly separate events united by the beauty of wonder, the pieces fell into place for Neise's own domino effect to impact the world.