Wood Marble Machines with interchangeable parts

Pick one ball and see if you can follow its entire journey as it clickety-clacks through the interchangeable mechanisms. The six-wheel lifting module or marble lift in the center sends the balls down four potential tracks. Titled Marble Machine Plant #7 – Double sided type 1, this video from Wood Marble Machine demonstrates how it’s components are fit together.

A marble lift is any device designed to move a marble from the bottom of your machine to the top. Instead of picking up the marble and feeding it back into the top by hand, we use a lift.

Automatic lifts are just that. You switch it on and you sit back and watch the machine work all by itself. Automatic lifts are usually driven by electric motors, which can be powered with batteries, solar panels, or plugged into a wall outlet. If it can produce electricity or motion, it can lift a marble. (You can even make a wind-powered marble machine if you wanted!)

A marble lift can be a small part of your machine or it can be the star of the show. One can be permanently built into each machine or it can be built as a module that you can uninstall and use in a different machine. There can also be several different lifts in each machine. There’s no limit to how you can use them.

Steel marbles slide down and work their way back up through two marble lift paths in this epic assembly run by five motors: Marble Machine Pant #10 – Triple sides. How many wooden ramps, gears, lifts, funnels, wheels, and other components are there in this?

Kits are available at WoodMarbleMachine.com. Or explore engineering, physics, and tinkering first-hand with TKSST Gift Guide-recommended Marbleocity marble machine kits for all ages.

Watch more videos with marbles, including Denha’s Noisy Marble Machine, a ramp and pulley marble machine game, and Marble Mountain, a huge themed marble machine in progress.

h/t Laughing Squid.