Tag Archives: ball bearings

Man Creates Marble Dropper With 1 Millisecond Accuracy

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Creating marble machines that produce music when the balls hit objects, Martin Molin of the band Wintergatan (which I’m pretty sure is just him and his machine) knows precision ball-dropping is of utmost importance. So he developed this ball gate that can release his musical marbles with a standard timing deviation of just 1.46 milliseconds. That’s 1.46 thousandths of a second, or, in layman’s time, pretty damn accurate.

In the video, Martin demonstrates what 1.46 milliseconds sounds like to the naked ear, then delayed 10, 20, and 50ms until you can actually detect a noticeable difference. So yeah, it’s safe to say the machine drops those balls when it’s supposed to. Below is a video of the sort of insane machine Martin needs, such a precision marble-dropping gate to power.

Hey, everybody needs a hobby. And if your hobby happens to make beautiful music, all the better. But if your hobby happens to make a bunch of deafening noise in the garage and start the occasional fire, well, welcome to my life. My wife says I should take up reading or painting instead of trying to build a rocket.

[via hackaday]

Death Star Ball Bearing Maze: That’s No Moon

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Because who hasn’t ever dreamed of participating in the Battle of Yavin (aka the Battle of the Death Star), Paladone has created this Death Star Maze. Sure it’s absolutely nothing like flying an X-wing and battling the Galactic Empire but use your imagination. A lot of it. Use every last bit of your imagination, and then some.

Available from Entertainment Earth, the $17 maze consists of the upper half of a Death Star with a transparent outer shell and plastic labyrinth inside and a small ball bearing to guide towards the super laser in a full 360-degrees of getting lost and frustrated. Or, if you’re really using your imagination, as I suggested, you can pretend the ball bearing is an ion torpedo, and you’re trying to guide it through a thermal exhaust port leading to the reactor core. I’ll even call you Luke Skywalker if it helps in this little fantasy of yours.

Tried solving the maze but struggling to finish? No problem, do you own a hammer? When all else fails, smack it with a hammer – that’s one of my mottos. Along with ‘You can never have enough duct tape,’ and ‘Honey, have you seen the Band-Aids?’

Mechanical Donkey Kong: How Real Can You Get?

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We’ve featured some mechanical versions of arcade games in the past, but I think this is my new favorite. That’s because this real-world version of Donkey Kong is actually controlled by an NES gamepad. That just makes it that much more awesome.

mechanical donkey kong

Builder Martin Raynsford built this Arduino-controlled analog version of the arcade classic using a bunch of laser-cut wood parts, and a mechanism that fires a barrage of ball bearings down the ramps in lieu of tiny flaming barrels. And since the balls are magnetic, they stop Jumpman in his tracks if he fails to jump over them.

mechanical dk 2

As you can see in the video clip below, the game is still a work-in-progress, as Jumpman is just hanging out in the middle of the game field and can’t really move around yet. But Raynford’s goal is to make the game fully-functional with time, and I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product, which he plans on showing off at next year’s UK Maker Faire. I’m curious to know how he’ll pull off the barrel-smashing sledgehammer.

You can check out more details of the build and mechanism over on Martin’s blog.

[via Kotaku via Engadget]