I got the plans off the internet for this one. I revised it several times and added some of my good wood scraps. It is a big hit with my grandkids.

I was asked how much time it takes to make projects. The answer is simple, when you do what you love to do, you lose track of time. However this marble game took LOTS of hours. It has 8 separate trails for marbles to descend.Each makes a noise, plays tunes or hits a bell. After each finishes its trail, it goes thru a hole and enters the lower open shelf where it can be picked up again. It can be loaded with about 10 marbles and after you trigger it, each marble will be released automatically.

The big problem with is that kids will put different marbles in it. The different diameters and weight causes an unbalance and sometimes will stall on of the trails.

That is one amazing piece of work . All I have done is a simple one. Funny thing is I have pics of most of what I do for family , but none of this.

That's outstanding! Lucky grandkids!

 

Steve

That is quite involved.  Nice work.

Amazing is an understatement - that is totally awesome, superlative, cool, outstanding!! Great Job, thank you for sharing!

Really cool! I'd like to try such a project.

That's neat I like how you added height by making part of the mechanism in the lid.

You load up the marbles in the lid, top left. You trigger it by dropping one marble in a hole. Then it releases one marble at a time. As it goes down it hits a diverter that changes the path of the next marble. Then it continues down and hits another diverter and so on. That makes all of the different paths in use at the same time. I may have a video of that

WOW! Just plain, wow!

that is awesome...

 

ball bearings???

Would be great to see a video of this in action.

13 minutes ago, Texaswally said:

Would be great to see a video of this in action.

+1---Absolutely amazing Ron! The various woods, shapes and contrast is beautiful...the fact that it does all that it does sends it over the top. Thanks for sharing with us!

The one that was the most difficult to get right, was the one with the blue bell in front. If you look below the right lid latch you will see a piece going down.  that is a square chute that the marble drops down, then hits a piece of wood,bounces off and hits the bell. I had to find the angle of the piece it bounces off of and then keep sanding on it until it travels the correct distance. It actually hits the bell most of the time.

...Grandkids must love it...I know I'd play for hours...

 

Your version of "Pachinko"...?  NICE ! ! !

 

The angles and dangles must have driven you crazy...good therapy...

Amazing what a person can do if they just take the time to do it. 

The thing for me use to be , well I could do things like that if I just had the time.

It might be good if that person stops and thinks, soon, I will have lots of spare time,

then what will my excuse be!!!

  Very nice work. My excuse is we didn't plant that many different trees when we

moved here.

 

Great work!!!!!!!