Marble Motion Machine (M3)

The marble motion machine (M3) was an idea by our of our Makerspace Mentors - Paul Chase. Paul runs the 3D printer group at Nova Labs. Paul taught us a lot about 3D printing, how to build a 3D printer and skills to diagnose a problem. See our 'What is a Makerspace' page to learn more about Paul.

When we brought a simple version of this to our first FTC qualifier event, we noticed that people liked to just watch it. We saw a lot of younger brothers and sisters spending time engaging on this. We learned that it’s a tool that fascinates people and then they begin to wonder how it's made. That wonder sparks curiosity that is the heart of the “Maker Mentality.”

We now think of the M3 as a STEM attention getter. It gets people interested and asking questions ‘How did you do that?’ ‘How is that made?’ It’s a conversation starter that bridges into STEM skills and tools - not only for students - but for parents too!

This was an unexpected learning in our 2017-18 season. We thought we could do something more with this as support for outreach to engage people on STEM and makerspaces.

For the Super Regional East event, we made a larger version of the machine. During the first day, lots of people expressed interest in making their own marble machine. This page was quickly created to provide some starter information on how to build.

Here is a video and some pics: https://photos.app.goo.gl/5LZngwwRURueUNsa2

Basic Information to 'Make' a Marble Motion Machine (M3)

The STL files for the 3D print components of the machine are on Paul's GitHub page located at: https://github.com/paenian/PrintedBallMachine

Paul recommends the motors from Pololu - - https://www.pololu.com/product/1120 We soldered USB connectors and they are powered by a USB charger.

Pegboard is a quick and easy for mounting the pieces. It's fun to customize pieces to work in specific combinations and to create new pieces.

The marbles are 5/8 inch steelies. The marbles travel along 3/8 inch dowels along the back to begin their next journey through the machine pieces.

If you have any questions on CAD, printing or 'making' the machine, email: john.link33@gmail.com