Gigantisch-genial-große Murmelbahn

Wow, das Teil ist krass! Ben Tardif bastelt seit rund drei Jahren am Marble Mountain, einem Monster aus etlichen kleinen Abschnitten und Murmelbahn-Teilen, das ein raumfüllender Spaß für die ganze Familie ist. Die kleinen Kugeln durchfahren Minigolf-Strecke, Halfpipes und andere Sensationen aus Holz. Klasse!

„It consists of 25 sections that mesh together to form one kinetic sculpture. Every element is themed (or will be upon completion) to an aspect of my life or to something that I find interesting. Some of the elements include a roller coaster, ski jump, Times Square, Lombard Street, and a skatepark.“

Facts:
-It has a footprint of 12′ x 8′ and stands 8′ tall
-The material of the tracks and supports consist almost entirely of wood
-Everything is custom-made from materials bought mostly from craft and hardware stores (mainly Michaels and Home Depot)
-The lift is 11 feet long, holds 90 marbles at once, and rotates at 1 revolution per second (60 RPM)
-It takes at least 250 marbles to keep it running without delay, but looks better with 300
-There are 32 possible paths for the marbles
-There are 14 rockers that distribute the marbles onto the different paths
-The first year and a half of construction happened in my apartment before moving to a small warehouse
-The original design was smaller and not as cool, so a redesign took place making it much bigger and morphed into a half-conical shape with the lift right down the middle
-I do know how much it cost to make thus far but even my finaceé doesn’t know that number
-It takes just under an hour to set up or tear down Marble Mountain
-Since it is modular, I could remove a section and rebuild it as something else as long as the tracks matched up with the other pieces

/// via: kraftfuttermischwerk