In October 2014 Martin visited the Speelklok Museum in Utrecht, Nertherlands. A wonderful museum packed with automatic mechanical musical instrument. Thanks to Speelklok and the Nordic Delight Festival!
Assembling Main wheel and cutting first gear
Building and assembling the 128 Teeth gear for the main wheel.
The short documentary about the recording of Wintergatans over of Visa Från Utanmyra.
Redesigning and testing the Vibraphone funnels.
This video demonstrates the Marble Lifting Mechanism. Following prologue videos will cover how it was constructed.
Built a flywheel to help with the timekeeping. More on all the other progress at another time, the Machine is starting to play music now. The Machine will be premiered playing a full song in a video as soon as it is finished.
Third times the charm on the Marble Demagnetizer for the Marble Machine X!
Week 3 summary - Martin Vs The Machine
Happy New Programming Pin Everyone ;)
Happy New Programming wheel Everyone ;)
These Bowden Cables Surprised Me with Spooky Mechanical Action at a distance!
Yes!
Safety First!
Gravity is constant, lets make use of it!?
The Huygens Chain drive allows us to play continuos music!
Woot Woot! We are getting started on a really fun week with some IRL building of a Flywheel prototype. The prototype is designed to answer the age old question: Can I play tight music using a very strong flywheel? The new flywheel have 20x more moment of inertia compared to the MMX Flywheel.
This day was Chaotic to say the least. We had so much setting up and looking for tools to do so we only managed to do three out of five turning operations, we´ll finish up the work on the lathe with the last two operations later this week. The prototype is designed to answer the age old question: Can I play tight music using a very strong flywheel? The new flywheel have 20x more moment of inertia compared to the MMX Flywheel.
You wont believe this but everything went to plan today! Really happy that my understanding of how CAD translates to IRL have improved this much. Lego Kit! :) The prototype is designed to answer the age old question: Can I play tight music using a very strong flywheel? The new flywheel have 20x more moment of inertia compared to the MMX Flywheel.
Crazy crazy day today as we keep on trucking getting this prototype together. We were saved by Jeremias, one of the visitors of the Wintergatan meetup who did a fantastic job turning the ID of the pulley for the tapered bushing.
It´s about damn time! Day 5 has been great, lots of progress and we are getting closer to the real timing tests for the proto. The prototype is designed to answer the age old question: Can I play tight music using a very strong flywheel? The new flywheel have 20x more moment of inertia compared to the MMX Flywheel.
First timing tests are in but not yet analyzed, however, it doesnt feel too promising at the moment. The process and the prototype does it job perfectly, it will provide the clear answers i need. Its still too early to judge though so will continue the testing process over the upcoming days. The prototype is designed to answer the age old question: Can I play tight music using a very strong flywheel? The new flywheel have 20x more moment of inertia compared to the MMX Flywheel.
Better Lathe than Never
As expected.
The Tightinator is measuring the tightness of transients by measuring the standard deviation of a set number of consecutive transients. When we are looking at the "Best 300" its the tightest 300 consecutive transients of an audio recording we are measuring.
I went to SKF to learn how to design a proper bearing arrangement and share their knowledge with you all. Thank you to Roger and the team at SKF for supporting the Marble Machine :)
The Tightinator is measuring the tightness of transients by measuring the standard deviation of a set number of consecutive transients. When we are looking at the "Best 300" its the tightest 300 consecutive transients of an audio recording we are measuring.
Knights of the Divider i Call upon thee, ride forth and search the Holy Grail Marble Divider! Follow the trail of the Design Requirements into the deepest design spaces. Find me the Holy Grail Divider and your name shall be written into marble machine history forever!
Knights FTW!
Flyball Governors FTW!
Rubber Bands FTW!
Tried and tested FTW!
Physics is the law, everything else is just recommendations
Thesis confirmed.
Physics & Form From Function FTW
Design Requirements work in progress
90 degrees boooooooo 45 degrees yeeeeeaaaa
The design requirement process pushed me to gather some more information about how the instruments were supposed to play. So here we are with some prototyping again.
weeeeeoooowww wakawaka weeow
Big Thanks to Louis Barclay for recommending this book on the Marble Machine engineering discord!
I’m making a cardboard model of the new Marble Machine, as a quick way to try different design options. I got the idea from the book ”How Big Things get Done” where the Planning Professor Bent Flyvbjerg recommends cardboard modeling as a low-tech, fast and cheap planning tool for complex projects. I never knew planning could be this much fun, I always thought planning was boring and uncreative. Compared to sketching in CAD this was much faster and felt much more real. Scale 1/10 BOOM!
How can we switch between songs on the new marble machine, fast and reliably? In this video we are looking at a new method to make this possible.
Researching how I can make Steel Balls Dropping on Cymbals sound good.
I was emailing with an Industrial Design engineer from Apple who told me: "One thing I've learned that can really make a product great is to find the magic and bring it forward." I really love that concept and i think it´s essential for the Marble Machine that i allow the whimsical, artistic, non-engineering parts of the project blossom. Giant flywheel? YES! Combine this with a more strict more deliberate design process should bring us closer to our goal this time.
More Moment Of Inertia = Tighter Music! And yeah, I could have discussed a few things better in the video: I think the way to design a wheel like this would be to always leave the hub on the shaft and then just add the spokes/OD perimeter in pie sections, lets say 6 or 8 sections. So we are not disassembling the shaft and gearing/timing belt at all, we are just removing/adding stupid pieces of heavy metal to the hub. The alignment/balancing of the wheel *should be easy*TM to get well within requirements. And the reduced need for speed will also help. We can put most of the weight on the OD where it is doing most work. In a way this was the final missing piece for me personally, the visual identity is in place. All that remains is to grind everyday for a couple of years here we go!
After studying how to improve my design process it's time to roll up the sleeves and actually start implementing what I´ve learned. In this episode I am trying to work from design requirements rather than just designing on a whim. It is not easy internalizing a brand new design sequence and sometimes I am still getting ahead of myself, but I think In general I have a much more grounded view: I am more focused on deciding WHAT the machine should do rather then HOW it should do it. This is the better place to start. Extra thanks to everyone who are sticking around during this very theoretical phase of the project, I am doing what I think I need to do to make progress!
Actually very pleased with this one!
I did this prototype to see how using moving Animusic drums would look on a Marble Machine and It´s much more fun watching the drums play when they move compared too being still. The drums are counterbalanced by weights, no springs are used. I also did this to try a potential setup of the drums on the machine and something like this kind of makes sense. Its a good viewing angle where you can see all the action from the audience perspective. I learned a lot of other useful things from this experiment and enjoyed playing Animusics crazy song swell :) Enjoy!
Our small but very popular instrument, Speldosa – Music Box, has just received a new update. Together with Wintergatan we’ve now added damping for more control. We hope that all you Muggles out there are pleased — because the wizards, have been working!
Plywood is so great you guys I´m seriously
I am really, like REALLY pleased with this design. It. Just. Works. No fine tuning needed, it's just the right way to do this! After spending so many years it is super rewarding to have found a solution that feels like it's really "IT". Satisfying galore.
Turns out after checking human anatomy that most of us has TWO HANDS! Perhaps we can use both hands to play music... let´s find out yeah!
I am looking to rent a studio/workshop in Stockholm, perhaps from you?
Help Wanted: Prototyping the Worlds Largest Plywood Gears :)
TPU is magic! The ability to model and print soft parts is opening up a whole new design space for the Marble Machine, solving many long lasting issues.
Building Marble Machine 3 - Episode 1 So it begins :) The first parts for Marble Machine 3 are here and I've learned so much. The first Metal Hub for the 1200 mm double helical plywood gear is here. I am learning the value of reading instructions and trying to see if I can assemble tapered bushings correctly. Looks like world tour is back on the menu!
