This enormous structure may look just like a toy, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a machine… made from toys. Austin Granger, a University of Minnesota computer science student, dedicated 250 hours of work and over 100,000 K’Nex pieces to create this work of art that stands over 23 feet tall and is displayed at The Works Museum. Who knew that K’Nex could be used for something so awesome (and not just destroying fingertips).
Not only is the machine impressively tall, it’s strong, too.
There are no adhesives involved at all, just K’Nex snapped together.
“There are 8 tracks. The ball goes through 7 rocker switches to get to them, and they are evenly distributed so there is a 1 in 8 chance of any ball going down any track.”
“The longest path wraps around the ceiling of the lobby, it takes 45 seconds to complete.”
The machine’s creator designed it as he went along.
The museum attempted to approach K’Nex, asking for funding, but the company wasn’t interested.
So its construction relied only on donations.
Austin used donated K’Nex pieces and those he found online for a discounted price.
Now that’s 250 hours of childhood nostalgia well spent. Austin answered the inevitable concern of whether this can withstand a kid trying to knock it over: “The main support towers are incredibly strong, and are designed to withstand well over twice the load they would ever need to. During construction, I would set my large boxes of K’nex on the towers for easy access, as well as stress testing. Since this is in a public place, everything had to be designed to withstand whatever a little kid can throw at it.” Source: reddit.com / The Works Museum Share this student’s awesome creation with others.
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