MSRaynsford

This tubular burr box is a bit more complicated than the previous burr puzzle, made with 6mm poplar I got the fitting just snug. Pay particular attention to the orientation of these parts, it makes all the difference. ( svg here )

Extending my detour into the puzzle realm I found some nice and simple burr puzzles that could be lasercut, the first is this Criss Cross Cube . I thought it would look good in acrylic so redrew it and cut one myself. This is 5mm clear and the puzzle has quite a lot of slack in it, the whole thing could be shrunk a little to make it a bit more snug. ( svg here )

I found this Byte Box Puzzle  while looking at laserable boxes last week. It's a very clever mechanism, 8 switches flip into either the up or down positions, in the correct position the whole lid can slide to the right slightly and then be lifted off. It's a byte box because their are 8 switches and therefore 256 possible combinations. The two switches on either end are fixed and are used to hold the lid down regardless of the other settings. ( svg here )

A new curvy track piece for the marble run ( svg here )

Apparently having the marbles spew across the table wasn't that helpful either, those previous slopes are still fun for making the marbles skip tracks but it really needed a catchment tray on the bottom. These also make the towers a bit more stable as they have a wider base. There is a little kick to the track at the bottom to make the marbles go round the disk rather than jam at the bottom ( svg here )

The kids were quick to point out that the marbles weren't leaving the run so they couldn't get them back, also the number of paths were limited because you had to use whole runs so I made some spacers and outlet pipes. Now the marbles will run out the bottom of the run (and across the table). Also arranged for skinny scraps ( svg her e)