This article was taken from the September 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
If you've ever seen an online video of a marble machine, in which marbles are elevated and then dropped using a series of obstacles, there's a good chance you were watching one of Matthias Wandel's contraptions. Wandel came up with the original version of the machine in 1996 when he and his brother were "free to experiment" in their father's workshop. The basic version presented here is a single-wheel version of the machine he created in 2000.
Gather supplies
You'll need: several marbles; a piece of wood thicker than the marbles you're using (most marbles are around 14mm); and a dowel shaft around 6mm in diameter. If you'd like your marbles to do something other than drop to the surface they came from, you'll also need to devise a track or other marble stunts - that's left up to the reader's imagination.
Build the wheel
Cut a 25cm-diameter circle out of the wood, with a small hole (up to 3mm) in the centre. Decide how many marbles you'd like on your wheel and drill a hole for each. Angle the holes towards the centre of the circle, and make them deep enough for the marble to fit into. Viewed head-on, the holes at the top should be angled down, and at the bottom, angled up.
Make a feed trough
You'll now need to support and feed the wood section with marbles.
To allow feeding, cut out a piece of wood so that it slopes toward the wheel to angle marbles towards the holes. Then cut the top into a circumference matching that of the feed holes. This will allow time for the marbles to drop into the holes and then be pulled to the top.
Assemble the wheel
To support the wheel vertically, cut out another piece of wood.
Attach the trough to the bottom, using a spacer to allow the bottom of the wheel to dip below the feed cut-out. Line up the bottom of the marble holes so they are parallel to the feed trough, then mark the wood in the centre of the lifting circle. Drill a hole here that is slightly larger than your dowel.
Finish and rotate
Expand the diameter of the hole in the lifting circle and tightly press in the dowel. Feed the wheel through the supporting hole, then fashion a crank out of wood with two of the same sized holes in it. Press the dowel in one end, and a shorter dowel in the other to form a handle. Feed marbles on to the trough, turn the handle, and watch.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
