Marble Drop

            I worked alone on this project, as I was behind on other projects.

My marble drop

             The theme for my marble drop is a mix of stars, space, and sun and moon. If I had to come up with a title for it, I'd call it "somewhere up above the stars". I don't really know how, when, or why this particular idea came to me; it sort of just popped into my head.

             To come up with ideas for the marbled drop, I thought of things in the night sky (the moon, clouds, constellations, shooting stars/comets) and things related to space (planets, rocket ships, suns/stars). I had a much grander vision for this project than I was able to make, but some of the ideas from that original idea were used in the final design. For example, the rocket was originally going to be where the marble landed and the sun was going to be a wheel for the marble to land in.

             The most difficult thing about this project was the depth perception required for planning out the design. I had to redo my design sketch at least twice because my box was too small.

             The marble travels through cardboard tracks, in different shapes- three are flat square tracks, one is half a cardboard tube, and two are more triangular. I made my own tracks out of cardboard. I cut thin pieces of cardboard into 1-in. strips, taped them together either in a pair or in a group of three, painted both sides black, measured the size the track would have to be to fit in the marble drop, hot glued the outer edges together, taped over the glued edge, then finally painted over the tape. After they were glued into place, I brushed some watered-down glue onto the front side of the track and dusted on some black glitter.

             If I could change anything, I would change the box- make it slightly bigger and make the walls of the box straighter.

             I'm proud of the whole piece, and I love the way it turned out.







<-----The top half of the marble drop












            The bottom half of the marble drop ----->

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