It’s an amusing ending, but it doesn’t quite follow logically. You’d think that if a machine was important enough for the town to turn out for a celebration, the purpose would have been pre-determined and highly anticipated.

seems like a story to deliver a punch line.. (awkward laugh).
I sense an allegory though. All is not lost!

Allegory: Lots of money and time spent on projects that go nowhere or tell us the same things: “study shows water is the best consumable fluid for humans”.