Life-size game of mousetrap

Why Rube Goldberg machines still matter in It took him 13 years and 50, pounds of stuff to build the big one. The crane alone took two years: It's all hand-built, but it's capable of lifting a two-ton safe 30 feet in the air. Its role in the game was to trap a plastic mouse. Because this is real life, and the Henry Ford Museum, its role was to crush a junked white Hyundai. But you've got to ask: Why? Why build it? Why take it on the road? He did a 10,mile tour last year, Perez said.

Why put the time, money, effort into oversized rainy day entertainment? Perez is a showman and artist, in addition to being a builder. Fans of Checkers can claim to play a game that was enjoyed by ancient civilizations. A version of a Checkers board dating to 3, B. Other versions have been traced to the ancient Egyptians. Checkers continued to evolve and reached something closer to its present-day form in medieval France.

Back in the early '80s, a young Seattle waiter would pick words from the dictionary and draw them for others to guess when he wasn't taking orders or schlepping food. Inspired by the recent success of Trivial Pursuit, he decided to make his party pastime into a full-on board game, Pictionary, assembling the first 1, games in his one-bedroom apartment.

Inventing a world-famous board game would likely be tops on the list of most people's lifetime accomplishments, but it was just a whimsical vacation project for Albert Lamorisse. But he was far better known as a filmmaker. The previous year, he'd even won an Academy Award for a short film called "The Red Balloon" that is still considered a classic to this day.

The game, also known as "Snakes and Ladders," traces its roots to ancient India. Ladders were meant to represent rebirth, with the player ascending to higher life forms via good deeds, while snakes whisked players to lower life forms because of evil doings.

When the British adopted the game in the late s, Victorian ideals like obedience and vices like indulgence made their way into the game. Once it came to the U. Ever wonder how this iconic dice game got its odd name? A wealthy Canadian couple invented the game as a way to entertain their friends on board their yacht. After it proved a big hit among their friends, the couple consulted with a toy maker who loved it, bought the rights, and changed the name from the relatively generic "Yacht game" to "Yahtzee.

The two conceived the Mouse Trap concept and had it ready for the Toy Fair. A board game that dispensed with conventional play methods like rolling dice or board squares was a radical departure for the toy industry of the s, and not everyone was on board. When Marvin Glass and Burt Meyer took the game to Milton Bradley to see if the popular board game company might be interested, they were surprised at the reaction.

But Glass had the last laugh. The game, released by Ideal, wound up selling 1. Despite its Goldberg-esque design, the cartoonist was never directly involved in Mouse Trap. America's favorite word game is also one of the most popular games to get the life-size treatment. In the photo above, some members of the Navy ham it up at the museum for Mississippi Navy Week.

Amazingly enough, the Scrabble above was created from canned goods for the Canstruction Vancouver , a canned food sculpture competition that raises money for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society. The "Giant Games in the Valley" portion of the Valley Fiesta in Brisbane, Australia, boasted this colorful version of the word game. Photo by Flickr user Michael Zimmer zayzayem. Toronto's Kensington Market has "Pedestrian Sundays," during which this giant homemade version of Scrabble was available to play.

Literacy Aotearoa Wellington LAW , a not-for-profit organization that provides free numeracy and literacy support to residents of Wellington New Zealand , hosted a giant street game of Scrabble on World Literacy Day While this version isn't playable, its size earns it a place on this list.

Gracing a building at Toy Story Mania! Photo by Flickr user Beau B. These "life-sized" versions of Monopoly aren't quite the size of the real locations named on the popular game's board, but they're still a lot bigger than the table-top version! Photo by Flickr user HarshLight. To attract attention for their " Pass GO! More information about the game and promotion at Press of Atlantic City.