Del's Beautiful New Wooden Machine

Here's something to do on a rainy afternoon.
I am amazed that this dang video is getting a new comment every twenty seconds on its youtube page!



Oh, and this one below is pretty cool. I actually built something similar one day as a kid, only with rubber balls and made in big sand heap. It had a long, winding track which even had tunnels in.



There are some other fun marble machines, like this one and this one. It strikes me that with some artistic talent added, this might be something.

It seems Pascal is "in the trade":
I got a toy for the kids which is precisely a marble machine, and they love it. I'll send you a photo. The only trick is, you have to think how you connect the hollow tube supports and back-and-forth ramps, if you really want the marbles to have a good trip and go where you intended them. Basically, you could say it's a glorified open-air rattle. Makes the same sound. :-) Given the amount of planning required to build one with three complete intertwined circuits from top to bottom, I take photos of my best ones so I can reproduce them again. And for the children, it's like a miniature Waterland Super Slide! Shrieks of ecstatic laughter when the cascade starts.