Photo Copyright © 1997 by Raul de Sorôa
The Rolling Ball Web
An Online Compendium of
Rolling Ball Sculptures, Clocks, Etc.
By David M. MacMillan et. al.
Tad Mayer reports (Feb 1, 1999):
I've come across three wooden RB toys that are construction sets, all with 90 degree holes in wooden cubes and wooden tracks that can be used between the cubes. ... [the second:] T-N-T International (short for Toys-N-Things) makes another called Amaze-N-Marbles. It was in many places before the holidays, but I can not find it on the Web now. It was closer to $40.
Tad Mayer reports (Feb 1, 1999):
I've come across three wooden RB toys that are construction sets, all with 90 degree holes in wooden cubes and wooden tracks that can be used between the cubes. The nicest (all Maple) is by T.C. Timber and is called Ball Tilt. It is available at www.toysmart.com for about $70 (pretty pricey).
Ban Dai (or Bandai) markets a ball run toy called ``Black Wolf Coaster'' ``Space Warp.'' (It is not clear from the packaging if ``Black Wolf Coaster'' is the series and ``Space Warp'' the model, or if they are both simply names in parallel.) This is apparently an extensible set. The one I saw in a local store in 1996 was item number 204197, cost $72.95, and was made in Taiwan. It bore a copyright date of 1987.
The address on this box was:
Bandai America, Inc.
12851 E 166 Street
Cerritos, CA 90701
However, the Ban Dai website indicates that in 1997 they moved to a new building, presumably at:
Bandai American, Inc.
5551 Katella Avenue
Cypress, CA 90630
A search of the Ban Dai website in 1999 did not reveal these toys; perhaps they have been discontinued?
Note: Ban Dai's website doesn't say anything about trademarks. I would presume that Ban Dai is probably a registered trademark, and "Black Wolf Coaster" and "Space Warp" are or were trademarks of Ban Dai America, Inc., but this is only a guess on my part.
This toy was produced by the Lesney company under the "Matchbox" name in the 1970s. Michael Loescher has a nice page devoted to it, with illustrations and sound recordings. This page is at:
http://members.tripod.com/Cascade_1/cascade.html
Chaos, LLC, markets an elaborate rolling ball construction set under the name "Chaos - World of Motion" This set has a number of add-on components.
They are on the web at:
They may be reached directly at:
Chaos, L.L.C.
10920 Schuetz Road
Saint Louis, MO 63146
314-567-9097 voice
314-567-9123 fax
Jim Gage reports (Feb. 1, 1999):
I found a wooden RB toy for sale at the museeum in Stockholm. It was made by a company called "Cleriq." So far, no luck finding them on the web. Their toy had wooden building block-like construction. Cubes with holes drilled through at 90 degree angles, straight tracks with a slight but obvious incline. You just stacked them up and built your own version! ... cost around 20 bucks, I think.
Cuboro is a rolling ball building-block toy by Matthias Etter. The name is derived from "cubus" plus "rollen."
Cuboro, a Swiss company, is online at:
Cuboro consists of many 5 x 5 x 5 cm wooden cubes with a variety of holes and channels in them. These cubes can be assembled to form arbitrarily complex rolling ball creations. The Cuboro website is very nice, and contains detailed descriptions of the functions of the cubes.
I've seen several simple "push the beads along the wire" toys targeted for the very young. One of these was made by Educo ® International, Inc. in Canada as Model ED-002 ("Spins & Spirals").
Educo is online at:
They refer to their products as "bead and wire mazes," and their website illustrates many items in their product line.
Their website contains a brief company history. It indicates that the company is owned by Kathy Klaus, and that what were (presumably originally) termed "eduframes" were originally designed by, and are licensed from George Valentine of Australia.
EWH Design is a German firm which is, I think, a subsidiary of Verband Deutscher Spielwaren Industrie e.V.. They make a set of simple wooden rolling ball toys intended for kindergarten-aged children. At the time of writing, several of these were illustrated on their website.
EWH Spielwarenfabrikation
Gartenstraße 8
D-35516 Münzenberg 1 - Gambach
Tel.: 06033 - 71775
Fax.: 06033 - 71955
http://www.stti.de/ewh/
Note: The EWH Design website does not say anything about trademarks.
At the time of writing, a German online retailer, http://kaufwas.com/, appeared to have an online toy store at http://kaufwas.com/holzspielwaren/ which carried rolling ball toys (kugelbahnen) for children.
The image on their site which serves as the link to the kugelbahnen page depicts a rolling ball toy of the type made by EWH Design. However, at the time of writing no such toy was depicted on the kugelbahnen page itself. This page instead depicted several other kinds of rolling ball toys:
Note: The kaufwas.com website does not say anything about trademarks.
K'NEX is a plastic construction toy, invented in the US by Joel Glickman. The UK K'NEX website has a brief history of the toy. The K'NEX "Big Ball Factory" is a K'NEX kit which allows the construction of a powered rolling ball machine.
The UK K'NEX website also has a photo of the Big Ball Factory. On the website, click on "Gallery" and then click on "K'NEX" (the middle icon). Then click on "Big Ball Factory."
Here's how I described to the rolling-ball list a K'NEX exhibit containing the Big Ball Factory. This exhibit was a commercial exhibit that at the time (1997) was at Inventure Place: The National Inventors' Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio.
Then I came to a large exhibit by K'NEX (a brand of plastic assembly toy). You could assemble K'NEX (and were given specific models to assemble if you chose) and, if you wanted to keep your piece, you could buy it by the pound.
One of the standard K'NEX kits is the "Big Ball Factory." They had one working there. It was fun. One very interesting feature it had was a completely different way of ejecting the balls from the lifter. The lifter was a chain, not entirely unlike the bicycle chain used by Rhoads. In a conventional piece, the ball is cradled on two wires welded to the chain. At the top, it is carried over the top of the top sproket and released into a wire channel. Thus, if the ball is going up the chain on the left side, it exits to the right.
The chains in most of the pieces I've seen have been rather tightly strung - not much slack in the chain. The chain in the K'NEX piece was looser. The ball's weight pulled the chain such that if the ball is visualized as going up the chain on the left, its weight pushed the chain a bit to the right - closer to the centerline of the top and bottom sprokets. I think this is important in what I'm trying to describe here because it means that the arms which cradle the ball are more nearly horizontal than they would be if the chain were tight.
So the ball approaches the top sproket cradled by nearly horizontal arms. There is another component as well. On a link just in front (or perhaps two in front - I didn't check closely) there is a small rod. This rod is arranged so that when the ball is being carried up it is nearly flush with the chain - it does nothing most of the time. Then when the link this rod is on begins to go over the top sprocket, the rod, being rigidly attached to this link, sticks out a bit. This kicks the ball off the chain. Thus, if the ball is thought of as riding the chain up on the left, it also exits to the left - the opposite of a traditional Rhoads chain - without going over the top sprocket itself.
There were a couple of other features of note. Once ejected from the lifting chain, each ball went into what was effectively a two-level binary switch. Three switches, each the same. Switches either in a "left" or "right" position; if in the "left" position then the ball goes down the "right" path and the switch is moved to the "right" position. Switches implemented as rocking inverted T's. What this works out to is not random at all - it's a binary code in which only one bit switches at a time. If memory of my old cybernetics class serve me, this is a "Gray Code."
There was also a loop. The ball comes down a long ramp and does a half-loop. If it is thought of as coming down right-to-left, then it exits going horizontally left-to-right. Given its velocity, it passes over a "hole" in its path. It goes up a slight incline, stops, and rolls back into this hole. Simple to draw, hard to describe.
K'NEX worldwide is on the web at:
It indicates worldwide websites in the USA, the UK, Austria, and Turkey.
The US website, K'NEX Industries, Inc., does not yet list the "Big Ball Factory."
K'NEX in the UK is at:
Big Ball Factory is sometimes depicted in toy catalogs. For example, it was in the Christmas 1995 FAO Schwarz catalog. it, describing it as a crank-operated plastic ball run consisting of 3100 pieces.
Thanks to Simon Allen and Vance Bass for information on the Big Ball Factory.
Note: I'm sure that "K'NEX," at least, and maybe "Big Ball Factory" ought to be trademarks or registered trademarks, but the K'NEX websites don't make any mention of this.
Raul de Sorôa took the following photo of a LEGO® rolling ball work at the Ontario Science Center, Toronto.
Photo Copyright © 1997 by
Raul de Sorôa
The following is an excerpt from the LEGO-faq, available at:
http://legowww.homepages.com/faq/FAQ.html
"Currently (until Jan. 1995?) the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry presents the LEGO Imagination Displays (a one story tall robot made out of duplo, statue of liberty, a big red bridge that spanned a small valley and had a railroad track on it that a guy on a little railroad car went back and fourth on, a working LEGO clock (that had all kinds of moving working pieces), a yellow ball `shoots and ladders' type LEGO structure (that had a LEGO elevator that moved balls up to the top of this thing and then the rolled down causing all kinds of things to happen - lights, windmills etc., interactive LEGO displays: robots movable by remote control, or for practice programing). T-Shirts for sale. -- Jeff (crites@cc.purdue.edu)"
Tad Mayer reports (Feb 1, 1999):
I've come across three wooden RB toys that are construction sets, all with 90 degree holes in wooden cubes and wooden tracks that can be used between the cubes. ... [the third:] The least expensive, but good quality was Marbleous (not sure of the manufacturer). It usually sold for about $20, but I can no longer find it at www.wishbook.com (the Sears toy site).
The Christmas 1995 catalog for The Nature Company lists a simple linear-drop toy marble run in wood entitled "The Motion Factory." It is constructed of drilled blocks and thin dowels. I do not know the manufacturer or designer.
This is a North American (US only?) chain of stores which features earth-related products and science toys. They sell or sold a simple linear-drop toy marble run in thick routed channels and drilled blocks (of wood).
Rokenbok System is a construction toy by Rokenbok Toy Company, Ltd. It features remotely controlled vehicles and some rolling ball devices. The balls themselves are rubbery plastic and are not solid, but rather composed of numerous ribs. Components include:
Rokenbok is online at:
With the exception of any material noted as being in the public domain, the text, images, and encoding of this document are copyright © 1996-1999 by David M. MacMillan.
This document is licensed for private, noncommercial, nonprofit viewing by individuals on the World Wide Web. Any other use or copying, including but not limited to republication in printed or electronic media, modification or the creation of derivative works, and any use for profit, is prohibited.
This writing is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but "as-is," without any warranty of any kind, expressed or implied; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
In no event will the author(s) or editor(s) of this document be liable to you or to any other party for damages, including any general, special, incidental or consequential damages arising out of your use of or inability to use this document or the information contained in it, even if you have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
In no event will the author(s) or editor(s) of this document be liable to you or to any other party for any injury, death, disfigurement, or other personal damage arising out of your use of or inability to use this document or the information contained in it, even if you have been advised of the possibility of such injury, death, disfigurement, or other personal damage.
All trademarks or registered trademarks used in this document are the properties of their respective owners and (with the possible exception of any marks owned by the author(s) or editor(s) of this document) are used here for purposes of identification only. A trademark catalog page lists the marks known to be used on these web pages. Please e-mail web@lemur.com if you believe that the recognition of a trademark has been overlooked.
Version
1.10, 1999/05/13.
Feedback to web@lemur.com
http://www.database.com/~lemur/rb-toys-com.html
Go to the: