Marble Machine

 I first saw a marble machine in the opening of the movie Fracture with Anthony Hopkins. 

It is a very mesmerizing thing to watch. I had to have one. I quickly found that they are usually one-off pieces of artwork and cost thousands of dollars. So I decided to building one. 

Trial and Error (Mostly Error)

The most important part if the lifting mechanism. It decides how tall the thing can be, and other facts i dont have on hand...

After screwing with the lifter for long enough, I decided to start soldering some track.

I came up with a fairly stylish way to make "stand-offs" for the track. Since this is just copper wire, I needed to support the track (frequently i guess?) or the track would start getting springy if too many marbles were rolling in a group. It made me think of the Mythbusters Bridge march episode.

I jumped the gun building the track before fully preparing the board. I carefully pulled the track out of the board to paint with some rustoleum.

Getting the sprial lifter is being a real PITA. Going to ditch it for something else. Time to rig some stuff up.