The Ball Sculpture
A slow, soothing rolling-ball sculpture — six glass balls on hand-built track, climbing endlessly.
A kinetic sculpture: six 16 mm glass balls rolling, one at a time, along a hand-built track. An elevator at the bottom slowly pushes balls upward and the next ball drops into the run. One full elevator cycle takes 5 min 32 s; the ride from top to bottom takes about 1 min 30 s. Most of the time, almost nothing happens — and that is the point.
Roughly 100 hours of design in Google SketchUp, 300 hours of building, and 50 hours of 3D printing on a RepRapPro Huxley (Beta). All printed parts are open and on Thingiverse.
Watch
By the numbers
- design time
- ~100 h in Google SketchUp
- build time
- ~300 h
- print time
- ~50 h on a RepRapPro Huxley (Beta)
- balls
- Six 16 mm glass balls — only one rolls at a time
- elevator
- 1 rpm motor, geared down — full cycle ≈ 5 min 32 s
- ride
- Top to bottom ≈ 1 min 30 s
Design rules
- Glass or steel balls — nothing else.
- The ball rolls as slowly as possible. Never stops, never hurries.
- No swirl in the track to slow the ball down. If you need to swirl, the ball is rolling too fast.
- Soothing, never stressful. You should always be able to follow the ball without effort.
- As quiet as possible. It belongs in a living room, not a workshop.
- The track should be as complicated as possible on as small a space as possible.
- Two-rail tracks only. Simpler beats clever. Less material is better.
Gallery
