Ball Run Inspirations in the Wild
Recently in the ATSC making and tinkering community of practice, Prinda Wanakule shared a post asking for new ideas and inspirations for marble machines and ball runs. That message coincided with a few interesting discoveries that I saw on personal and professional travel over the past couple of months.
Coincidentally, I’ve also been thinking with local partners about how to put together a massive collaborative sound ‘kugelbahn’ down a villiage street. As part of the planning process, I’ve been compiling a list of related projects from around the world. So with those two inputs, I wanted to share a few inspiring ball run machines that can hopefully spark some new ideas about the tinkering theme.
First off I wanted to highlight a couple of wooden ball run machines that I found in some incredibly scenic spots in Trentino, Italy. I’ve stumbled across similar wooden tracks while exploring Italy, Switzerland and Germany and they seem to have a few elements in common.
Usually there’s a place to buy a wooden souvenir ball for a euro or two and then you can play and test the runs as much as you like. Luckily all of the tracks that we found were ‘compatible’ so we could bring our ‘tester’ to different locations. We found three tracks near Lago di Braies and a few more up at the Plan de Corones. I’ve also encountered these types of outdoor tracks in several spots in the Black Forest of Germany and there are a couple more that are on my list to explore in Rheinfelden and Birkendorf.
The tracks are typically made from long wooden beams with deep grooves that connect more complex elements together. It was fascinating to see pinball like mechanisms, spiral staircases and wide shallow bowls that extended the time that the ball took to travel down the track. The ball runs use familiar objects like cow bells to make sounds and sturdy colanders to catch the ball at the end of the track.
I’m really impressed at how the wooden pieces withstand year round weather conditions outside with apparently very little maintenance. I think there’s much to learn about how the simple and sturdy construction can produce long-lasting engagement and fun for participants. I feel like this idea could be interesting for museums and science centers to activate their public spaces around the outdoor space. There’s a level of group interest and collaboration that can happen when people notice the possibility to test the tracks and I think it could spark lots of conversations and interactions even before entering the science center.
The second version of a ball run that I wanted to highlight was the Nuture Mini ART Golf course that’s in an open park on the land of the abandoned Templehof airport in Berlin. I had been to something similar in San Francisco called Urban Putt but I felt that the elements at this scrappy course were even more whimsical and unique.
Many of the elements pushed the boundaries of a “mini golf hole” as they added cranks, moving tracks, transports and even electrical switches and fire spouting elements. The idea of having artists combine for different elements of a ball run would be really interesting to explore further in a science center context. And the act of participating in the mini golf game also brought people into the experience on a deeper level. I would love to host a workshop or event some day where people could build and test a similar large scale, tinkerable course.
The last collection of ball run inspirations that I wanted to share comes from the recent exhibit development residency that I had at the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany. One of the things that I appreciated most about Phaeno was that there are a multiplicity of ways to engage with each scientific topic and marble runs were no exception. Some of the variations on the theme of ball runs were familiar to me and others I had never seen before and could inspire new directions.
Some of the most inspiring ball runs were artist works behind a rope or glass. Treating the kinetic sculptures of artists like George Rhodes and Mary Ziegler as special creations seems to elevate the idea of a ball run into the realm of art. I think it’s also really important to display these high ceiling examples.
Another brilliant art piece that I’m inspired by is a wild, neon, recycled parts filled track made by the great Nicklas Roy. This was interesting because it was behind a window facing the outside of the science center grounds but could be activated by scanning a QR code.
On the opposite end of the spectrum were large, sturdy, unpredictable wooden ball runs in the young childrens zone of the science center. While also showing deep craftsmanship and beautiful wooden pieces these robust ball runs were meant to be played with hard. I liked some of the small touches in the space like making a thick felt landing pad inside heavy enameled dutch ovens.
The collection of big and small, futuristic and hand-crafted, simple and complex pathways created lots of opportunities to investigate the phenomenon of rolling balls, gravity, friction and other physical phenomenon.
It was great to see that there was also a Tinkering Studio style space for people to build their own complex ball runs. I think that it’s quite possible that the collection of exhibits and examples influence the way that people interact with this more open-ended construction experience.
These examples of outdoor wooden ball tracks, Nuture Mini ART Golf and science center exhibits at Phaeno point to the endless possibilities for experiments in different art, science and engineering topics. I’m curious to learn more about other inspiring ideas so please share marble machines, ball runs and rolling contraptions that you have found in the wild near you!