Bamboo Technology

"My favorite's the Professor
He always saves their butts;
He could build a nuclear reactor
Out of a couple of coconuts."

— "Gilligan's Isle Thing" — "Weird Al" Yankovic

Basic Information

Bamboo Technology is a trope that describes the sort of machines The Professor would make on Gilligan's Island or that the cavemen would use on The Flintstones. It's technology from the Modern Day or at least early Industrial Revolution, but made only from materials available in the Stone Age. Logically, it shouldn't be possible, but the Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny say otherwise.

Related Tropes:

• Punk Punk
• Robinson Goldberg Contraption aka Rube Goldberg Machine
• MagiTek

Components and Materials:

• Bamboo
• Coconut
• Dinosaur
• Rock
• Wood
• Seashell

Sources

Bibliography

1. TV Tropes Wiki

Game and Story Use

• One of many ways to work a higher tech level, or just include a specific technology that you wanted, into your setting.
• If a Mad Scientist or Connecticut Yankee gets stranded in the boondocks, what else can he do?
• Some Bamboo Technology devices might actually be possible, but modern manufacturing technologies are so much better that nobody really bothers with it. In that case, some people might still prefer to build comparably "modern" devices via bamboo technology for cultural, religious, or artistic reasons.