I love computers but I think my slightly addled brain is just too stupid to quite understand how they work. Thankfully people like Matthias Wandel are looking out for me (although they probably don't ...

Equipped with a marble, some wood and the principles of potential energy, kinetic energy and gravity, one man built a remarkable machine that warps your very sense of what’s physically possible.

In the fever dream that was my youth, I was enamored with an odd sketch on Sesame Street featuring a ball that goes up and down a long, windy track before ending up as a pile of powder. This sequence ...

Marble machines are the kind of useless mechanisms that everybody loves. Their sole purpose is to route marbles through different paths for your viewing pleasure. They can be extremely complicated ...

Last year, artist and musician Martin Molin of the Swedish band Wintergatan shared the results of his mechanical labor of love with the online community – the Musical Marble Machine. A captivating ...

He added: ‘You put a lego technic nail into the 32 bar loop grid and every nail drops one marble. There are 22 tracks for the nails and the marbles.’ ...

Stringed instruments make noise from the vibrations of tuned strings, using acoustic or electronic means to amplify those vibrations to the point where they’re loud enough to hear. The strings are ...