Binary Marble Adding Machine
Sometimes there’s nothing better than tinkering in the shop and making something just for the sake of doing it. For me, it’s often making my own wood hinges. For Canadian engineer/woodworker Matthias Wandel, it’s wooden gears, geodesic spheres, and other fanciful, if not always practical contraptions. His most recent creation is a Binary Marble Adding Machine, the latest in a series of “rolling ball sculptures.”
Why build a marble machine? Well, according to Matthias, “My Marble Machines are complicated and ingenious, but utterly useless pieces of toy machinery that automate the process of playing with marbles. With toys like these, mankind is free to pursue more productive ends, while leaving the playing with marbles to his trusty automated machine servants.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.