@@gibberishname There are more than one kinds of "simple". Having effectively only two moving parts is one kind and it applies to this device... sort of. OTOH count up the number of curves and straight slopes add one for a marble and you have a more realistic idea of the number of moving parts. Now make each of these parts adjustable but adjustment of one changes at least two other parts, and your idea of "simple" becomes a joke. You could make a version of this device that needs no adjustments and works flawlessly every time. It would not look anything like this and would most likely be ugly as sin.
In one of the close up shots you can see where Adam is having the problem (16:30). It looks like inside wire is disconnected. It transitions from one wire to another lower wire. I suspect it is causing the balls to bounce and be unstable at that point.
Nah. Marble sizes today are highly accurate, uniform, and void of flaws that would disrupt a run. The problem is not in the marbles, but lies in the alignment of the track rails. They do need to be finessed a lot if they go out of alignment.
Hey Adam! Sebastian here, the engineer behind Marbolous. Your unboxing video totally made my day! 😊 Seeing Marbolous come to life like this is awesome. It was definitely a wild ride getting everything just right - those precision welds were no joke! If you're setting it up, that little instruction sheet really is a life- and timesaver. 😉 By the way, we have in the meantime optimized the stainless steel tracks and they run much better now. BR Sebastian PS: Whoever send the MARBOLOUS to Adam (we bet on a KICKSTARTER or INDIEGOGO supporter?) Thanks so much, you are incredible!
I'm glad you showed up, here. There are an awful lot of early commentors that don't seem to understand that it's kinetic art, not an industrial marble delivery mechanism.
@@blindleader42 Hi! Nice to get to know you :-) Indeed we are with MARBOLOUS far, far away from any industrial marble run. For instance our track elements are all stainless steel, laserwelded not any cheap plastic like most available models. If you have ever tried to weld such small parts you do understand how tight tolerancing must be to built a working marble run. Still I guess we need to rework on adjustment instructions. Once understood the adjustment process is easy and fast to handle. But we didn't want to make it too easy for Adam either ;-)
Just watching the problem solving that Adam does here is so calming. This is why I am a member of this channel. If you aren't a patron, you should consider it.
Exactly!, 100% agreed. I love watching the way in which Adam's mind works with how he becomes completely focused on a task in order to figure out a solution. It is both fascinating and calming.
given it sounded like the marbles may be "natural materials" I'd see if it was the same marble or two that are slightly heavier or lighter... thought it could be the total mass of marbles on the run changing the geometry a bit
Story of my life , every single time I try to fix something for someone else, a 5 minute fix turns into an hour or hours ,, it's what the universe gives me for being nice (nice guys always finish last)
@@gfdia35. Funny how “nice guys” seem to have such a victim mentality….. If you don’t genuinely want to be helpful, don’t fake it and resent doing so later.
A lot of instructions have digital versions available to download so customers could potentially see how to open the box before they have access to the physical copy.
Something i learned a long time ago: You can make instructions as idiot-proof as you want, but the joke's on you because an idiot won't read the instructions to begin with.
For the eternal tinkerer I think the need to tweak this out of the box is probably just as satisfying as the product working... But I don't think more average consumers would be as tolerant
Honestly i think if Adam has paid money for this thing and he couldn't get a whole video out of him messing with it he probably wouldn't have been forgiving of the product.
I buy 250$ failure, and open at birthday party for my friend, everyone have the same problem, dont work. "You have one job", to make marble go down, and not working, i spend so much money 250$, and so much time and effort, CEO of company take millions of $ and give this shame? This is the flop of the millenium, everyone hit like button here so nobody buy and spend money and have embbersement like i have, shame on company DONT BUY 250$ dont work. I want public apologies to everyone and 2x money back, ceo make that for 15$ and take 225$ in pocket, am gonna sue the company, and everyone do the same.
Indeed part of the whole fascination with MARBOLOUS should be to interact and adjust it - we think this was always the best back in the good old days once we all played with Marble runs. I assume - and there the blame is on us - we need to improve the instruction on how to adjust the marble run in a structured way. This seems to be the whole "problem" for our point of view
Yea I wouldn't be.. a little tweaking.. maybe.. but it should work as it should out of the box. because 250 bucks isn't nothing, and you're allowed to have the expectation that it should work as normal.. it simply should have better tolerances to be more forgiving to failure for a consumer market
Its a very common problem with marble machines. I think the real problem is simply that the track is formed out of steel wire which is kind of springy and is left floating too much in the air.
I think it's commendable of Adam to remain enthused by the product, even after its shortscomings appear. However, while Adam is the perfect person to send a product that needs tweeking, I doubt that many would share his enthusiasm
Having designed one from scratch myself, I found that a source of "random" failures for me was the fact that my marbles (amazon) were not of uniform size. I laser cut a straight track with a slowly widening slot, and ran them down with small bins underneath, thus sorting them by size. then I found the size that worked best and things vastly improved. Your marbles seemed pretty uniform, but worth mentioning for anyone else working on similar projects.
Watching Adam having to tune it, and then the smile that comes on his face when it's almost right, but not perfect, so he continues to tweak it. As someone with ADHD and a hint of Aspberger's, the delight is awesome. Now I want one!
I love marble runs even tabletop ones like that. Now it makes me wonder. If Adam would ever make himself a simiilar style marble run or one on a larger scale that he could make run perfectly.
11:05 That exact moment when the marble from below touches the marble from above and eats its momentum, that's hard to time, nice you got that one on camera.
Adam, I love your work so much. I think this is one of my favorite videos in the channel, because we can just see your mind working. As a software developer, I just identified completely with what I do everyday
I enjoyed Adam's enthusiasm even while tuning the track, and catching a bit of a grin cross his face as he pushed the lever down to load more marbles on the track.
As an early backer (Kickstarter) and owner of this product, this video was fantastically entertaining to watch. Especially as an "old school" Mythbusters fan as well. A couple of points on the product Adam is testing here: Yes, when I received my copy of the product I did have to adjust the tracks slightly. Interestingly, I had to go through almost the exact same process as Adam did. First, there was an issue of marbles getting stuck. No problem. Found the trouble spot and adjusted the track very slightly to allow the marble to pass unobstructed. I suspect, however, that this adjustment caused the next issue which was marbles falling off the track. Mine only happened to about 1 in 25 marbles though, so I had to really watch closely. Once located, however, I did the same thing as Adam and slightly adjusted the outside rail of the track in order to keep the marble on it. Mine now works with 100% success. I see others below commenting about how easy it should be to make this product better than they believe it is. My only advice is to visit the campaign page and read the project updates. The creators of this product care about so many things and really did their best deliver both their vision and a solid product. So, hopefully as an actual owner of one of the devices I hope this serves as a more solid "review" than the speculators below. :)
Honestly I think that part of the joy of this kind of toy is the satisfaction of tweaking it until you get it to run perfectly and reliably. It's a fidget toy of sorts
I used to sell these at work and they would always stop or jump the track at the exact same spots as your did. It’s honestly pretty validating watching Adam make the exact same tweaks to it that I did!
I saw hints in the comments of a couple of these, but I'd begin here: 1. In marble run v2, make the rails slightly further apart to presumably elimnate the chance that the marble would escape sideways due to excessive velocity. 2. Before shipping out sets of balls, build a device at the factory to sort thousands of balls by size. Ship only CLOSE sizes with a given set to reduce inconsistency. 3. Adam, you went right into bending rails--but what if the center tower supporting everything was the only thing misaligned in the beginning? Seems like the start of an endless chase for alignment. :-) Aside from a bubble level which wouldn't seem precise enough, could there be a one-use leveling jig for the customer to use following shipping? Then have three feet on the base to tweak with screws (or just bend the tower), but I'd still argue this could be corrected with suggestion (1). All this is said having never built a marble run, but I've imagined doing so MANY times! :-)
“Here’s the model for Adam, we hand fitted the parts to make sure it works for the video”. “What do you mean? I just grabbed one off the shelf and shipped it to him yesterday?” “YOU DID WHAT?!?!”
Mine worked perfectly out the box. The manual has simple troubleshooting steps for these issues. You're supposed to pivot the inner/outer bars as opposed to bending the entire track so much. But this actually looked fun troubleshooting
That machine became a perfect toy for any of us like Adam who likes to manipulate the world and devices around them... :) Making a machine work better, or as perfectly as it is capable of is actually hugely satisfying - this machine went up several notches in entertainment level immediately it had a marble stop somewhere! Cheers from Oz, I really like the manual operation, it's not just a battery powered thing that has no more operator input beyond fitting some batteries - mechanisms that do not use batteries are far too under-rated...
The slow motion feature built into the camera on your phone could have probably helped you identify where the problem is without relying on the naked eye. You could probably even bank all the corners so the marbles go really fast. That is a very cool gadget.
When I was a kid the science centers and some malls around me had these kinetic pool call sculptures by George Rhoads. I'd watch them for as long as my parents or grandparents patients would last 😂
If I had paid for this myself and had this much trouble with it I would've been fuming but watching Adam tinker with it and try to fix it is so entertaining. The duality of content I suppose. Watching it is great, not so much the struggle if it was me.
Adam is happier because he needs to adjust this device. If it worked "outta the box", he wouldn't be able to use his tinkering skills. He forgot about us halfway through the video. See Adam at 18:04.
This reminds me that you should really do a video with Matthias Wandel. You both deserve visibility to each others' viewers if they aren't already subscribed to one!
That awkward moment when you send something to an influential person hoping for a glowing endorsement, and the item craps the bed. So much for that potential sales bump.
"We'll send one to Adam Savage. It'll be a free commercial!" "Look! He's showing off our gee-gaw!" "Well ... shit." I had to stop watching the video. It's embarrassing.
Something like this is bound to have imperfections, either during manufacturing or shipping. If you aren't the type like Adam, who likes to tinker, and isn't afraid of the possibility of ruining it, this may not be for you.
The material should be an exact mold and less flexible, it’s slightly more rigid than wire hangers. $250 for something that you have to manually push but you can also plug in for a timed release / motion sensor release but it should just be plug and play where the marbles should have a little door externally to insert them. Idk if this was $50 on Amazon it is what it is but for $250 even with ShopPay or whatever is most popular now days for pay in 4 it is just a scam sadly.
So Adam, did you ever have/play with "Spacewarp"? nylon tubing for tracks, aluminum tubing for vertical supports, plastic yokes and clips and base... infinitely customizable marble run toy. I had a lot of fun with that as a kid, circa early 1980's.
It is indeed a beatiful object, one that I would certainly enjoy futzing with for hours. Also, I suddenly feel the desire to watch the Marblympics again. Lol.
Would love to know if the little spheres are UV sensitive. To see what those would look like fluorescing in the dark as they make their way down the track would be awesome.
What ever heartburn the company may have had with Adam immediately tweaking the thing is completely outweighed by him being fascinated and playing with it. I'm not sure there's an amount of money that could have bought that shot.
What better example of the dichotemy between "good enough" and "perfect". I doubt this could ever be tuned to absolute perfection since tuning for 1 ball at a time might result in multi-ball sticking or the weight of 1 causing another to jump the track, etc. Add in different ball release intervals and the chaos of the real world is shown in all its glory :)
I had a similar issue with a kit called marble city. It was a mostly wooden one with a crank handle that moved the marbles up a gear lift. It was fun getting it setup and working but due to minor imperfections in the material it took awhile to get it to be consistent.
I would of liked different colour marbles, . Adam I didn't see you measure the gap between the rails, does the marble ride higher or lower in the trouble areas?
My heart feels for the company (not too much, for all the reasons everyone else pointed out.. Not a failure of the product, just how finicky it is!), but quite honestly... Turning pliers into no-mar pliers with a little bit of tape?!?!? Mind=blown! That is going in my mental toolbox!
If there was a video created to make someone want to buy that marble run, this is the opposite. I have never wanted a thing less than I want that after watching this.
That little bit of sticky that is left from the corner that you initially need to peel up is easily removed by using the sticker itself. Put the sticker back over that small spot and quickly peel it back up a few times and it will remove any left over residue without leaving a single mark. You could also use something like Goo-Gone but then you also need to thoroughly clean it with glass cleaner afterwards.
I think the reason you're creating your Newton's Cradle is the weight of multiple marbles on that section is deflecting the track enough to cause them to stall
To avoid 'Newton's cradle', at any given point on the track there must be slope 'downhill' that will cause a marble to start rolling. A tricky point may be that not all marbles are perfectly round
@@zachmoyer1849 well it was free to someone who is likely in the top 0.1% of enjoyers of this thing, implying that for us regular people it has no value as something that needs to be tinkered with
It's probably a shipping issue. Everything gets tossed around hard by overworked, underpaid warehouse workers because they have to in order to keep the throughput that is asked of them. It doesn't matter if it is labeled fragile or whatever, it's getting yeeted. This is why packing everything properly and tightly with packing material is so important, unfortunately, but people don't generally learn that lesson until they experience it by having something they ship get broken. It's very, very unfortunate. But this isn't actually the manufacturer's fault, beyond "maybe pack it full of packing material". But that has a tradeoff and a risk too - packing that material in, or removing it too vigorously could in itself bend the rails and throw it out of tolerance. It could also be a marble issue, if they have poor tolerances. This is why steel marbles are often better, because they are often literally ball bearings made with incredibly precise tolerances. If it screws up with only a few marbles, you remove them and it should work fine.
All the marbles are of 3 different sizes that fall through one of 7 places, every time you tweak it you activate 2 other places that allow some of the marbles to fall some of the time...
Manufacturer:
"Unboxing video of our product yay!!!"
*sees that it's 20 minutes long*
"Oh no..."
Ha!
For $300 there really is NO EXCUSE for something as simple as this NOT to work out of the box
@@gibberishnameseems you missed a word in there.
@@rasmusvedel haha, thanks. speech to text fail. fixed.
@@gibberishname There are more than one kinds of "simple". Having effectively only two moving parts is one kind and it applies to this device... sort of. OTOH count up the number of curves and straight slopes add one for a marble and you have a more realistic idea of the number of moving parts. Now make each of these parts adjustable but adjustment of one changes at least two other parts, and your idea of "simple" becomes a joke. You could make a version of this device that needs no adjustments and works flawlessly every time. It would not look anything like this and would most likely be ugly as sin.
My two cents: the marbles have large enough differences in weight, diameter and "roundness" that tuning this thing to perfection is a wild goose chase
In one of the close up shots you can see where Adam is having the problem (16:30). It looks like inside wire is disconnected. It transitions from one wire to another lower wire. I suspect it is causing the balls to bounce and be unstable at that point.
@@dodaexploda I totally forgot that aspect you are right. My point still stands imo
He lost his marbles😂
@@robinmaurer2645 your point absolutely still stands and is a potential issues.
Nah. Marble sizes today are highly accurate, uniform, and void of flaws that would disrupt a run. The problem is not in the marbles, but lies in the alignment of the track rails. They do need to be finessed a lot if they go out of alignment.
Hey Adam! Sebastian here, the engineer behind Marbolous. Your unboxing video totally made my day! 😊 Seeing Marbolous come to life like this is awesome. It was definitely a wild ride getting everything just right - those precision welds were no joke! If you're setting it up, that little instruction sheet really is a life- and timesaver. 😉 By the way, we have in the meantime optimized the stainless steel tracks and they run much better now.
BR Sebastian
PS: Whoever send the MARBOLOUS to Adam (we bet on a KICKSTARTER or INDIEGOGO supporter?) Thanks so much, you are incredible!
I'm glad you showed up, here. There are an awful lot of early commentors that don't seem to understand that it's kinetic art, not an industrial marble delivery mechanism.
@@blindleader42 Hi! Nice to get to know you :-) Indeed we are with MARBOLOUS far, far away from any industrial marble run. For instance our track elements are all stainless steel, laserwelded not any cheap plastic like most available models. If you have ever tried to weld such small parts you do understand how tight tolerancing must be to built a working marble run. Still I guess we need to rework on adjustment instructions. Once understood the adjustment process is easy and fast to handle. But we didn't want to make it too easy for Adam either ;-)
I was anxious just watching the instructions being totally ignored
@@rondavis3232 :D we too
I almost guarantee he didn't set it on the most level surface ever. Since he rotated the fixture and had different results. Kind of a giveaway
Just watching the problem solving that Adam does here is so calming. This is why I am a member of this channel. If you aren't a patron, you should consider it.
Exactly!, 100% agreed. I love watching the way in which Adam's mind works with how he becomes completely focused on a task in order to figure out a solution. It is both fascinating and calming.
I love the fact that the instructions on how to safely remove the product from the box is placed inside that box! Genius!
Frustrating trying to troubleshoot something when the failure isn't consistent
personally it would be but watching adam do it is quite satisfying
given it sounded like the marbles may be "natural materials" I'd see if it was the same marble or two that are slightly heavier or lighter... thought it could be the total mass of marbles on the run changing the geometry a bit
Story of my life , every single time I try to fix something for someone else, a 5 minute fix turns into an hour or hours ,, it's what the universe gives me for being nice (nice guys always finish last)
I have to believe that you have a couple of marbles that are ever so slightly larger or heavier.
@@gfdia35. Funny how “nice guys” seem to have such a victim mentality…..
If you don’t genuinely want to be helpful, don’t fake it and resent doing so later.
Seeing Adam's face contort as the thought " oooo a problem to solve " hits is amazing.
I love how the first instruction in the manual is how to open the box… that also contains the instruction manual 😂
A lot of instructions have digital versions available to download so customers could potentially see how to open the box before they have access to the physical copy.
@@ObsessiveGeekYou shouldn’t need instructions on how to open a box. Digital or physical.
Something i learned a long time ago: You can make instructions as idiot-proof as you want, but the joke's on you because an idiot won't read the instructions to begin with.
For the eternal tinkerer I think the need to tweak this out of the box is probably just as satisfying as the product working... But I don't think more average consumers would be as tolerant
Honestly i think if Adam has paid money for this thing and he couldn't get a whole video out of him messing with it he probably wouldn't have been forgiving of the product.
I buy 250$ failure, and open at birthday party for my friend, everyone have the same problem, dont work. "You have one job", to make marble go down, and not working, i spend so much money 250$, and so much time and effort, CEO of company take millions of $ and give this shame? This is the flop of the millenium, everyone hit like button here so nobody buy and spend money and have embbersement like i have, shame on company DONT BUY 250$ dont work. I want public apologies to everyone and 2x money back, ceo make that for 15$ and take 225$ in pocket, am gonna sue the company, and everyone do the same.
Indeed part of the whole fascination with MARBOLOUS should be to interact and adjust it - we think this was always the best back in the good old days once we all played with Marble runs. I assume - and there the blame is on us - we need to improve the instruction on how to adjust the marble run in a structured way. This seems to be the whole "problem" for our point of view
Yea I wouldn't be.. a little tweaking.. maybe.. but it should work as it should out of the box. because 250 bucks isn't nothing, and you're allowed to have the expectation that it should work as normal.. it simply should have better tolerances to be more forgiving to failure for a consumer market
Its a very common problem with marble machines. I think the real problem is simply that the track is formed out of steel wire which is kind of springy and is left floating too much in the air.
I'm losing my marbles just watching this.
Well done.
Adam almost lost some too :)
Love how you got more enjoyment out of fixing this than the thing working perfectly.
Well, there's not that much joy in it when it works perfectly and tinkering is its own joy. So yeah.
Spreading the tracks apart just a bit will help slow the marbles down. That’s a cool piece of art
I think it's commendable of Adam to remain enthused by the product, even after its shortscomings appear.
However, while Adam is the perfect person to send a product that needs tweeking, I doubt that many would share his enthusiasm
Let's send him a plank of wood and a spool of solderable wire and call it a diy marble run kit. Bet he'll love it.
Why should he be enthused by something so crap?
Having designed one from scratch myself, I found that a source of "random" failures for me was the fact that my marbles (amazon) were not of uniform size. I laser cut a straight track with a slowly widening slot, and ran them down with small bins underneath, thus sorting them by size. then I found the size that worked best and things vastly improved. Your marbles seemed pretty uniform, but worth mentioning for anyone else working on similar projects.
Watching Adam having to tune it, and then the smile that comes on his face when it's almost right, but not perfect, so he continues to tweak it. As someone with ADHD and a hint of Aspberger's, the delight is awesome. Now I want one!
UA-cam at its best: Watch someone buy something I can't afford and then fix it in a way I wouldn't want to. My brain is happy!
Adam didn't buy it. It was just sent to him for free. No note included or anything.
I'm way more impressed by the plier 9:44 that Adam uses to fix the toy than by the toy itself. now I need those pliers
To watch Adam in joyful fascination was a lovely moment to see. True to thought, fascination knows no age.
Funnily enough the fact that Adam had to fix a faulty product probably gave him more fun engagement with it than if he just unboxed it and it worked 😂
The look on your face at 18:06 after all the persistence and tweaking of the marble run. It just shows. You were _that_ kid. You were me.
the plier set you where using to adjust the marble run is one of my favorite sets. That set has so many good plier angles to use, worth every penny.
I love marble runs even tabletop ones like that. Now it makes me wonder. If Adam would ever make himself a simiilar style marble run or one on a larger scale that he could make run perfectly.
Yeah it'd be great to see Adam make his own. Would show us many small maker skills like soldering and problem solving
*David Morrell - Rolling Ball Sculptures*
You’re welcome
Love the entusiasm and joy in your eyes when it all works out ❤
11:05 That exact moment when the marble from below touches the marble from above and eats its momentum, that's hard to time, nice you got that one on camera.
So half way through the tweaking, I would hear my wife's voice telling me, "Why don't you read the manual."
Adam, I love your work so much. I think this is one of my favorite videos in the channel, because we can just see your mind working.
As a software developer, I just identified completely with what I do everyday
I cannot see or say the word "Fragile" in my head without going "It must be Italian."
Same with "ESCAPE"... hey, that's spelled just like "escape!"
"Fascination knows no age" --Insert screenshot of Adam's face when he's working on it 😁😁😁
I enjoyed Adam's enthusiasm even while tuning the track, and catching a bit of a grin cross his face as he pushed the lever down to load more marbles on the track.
12:05 - 12:30 Adam starts having a nerdgasm! 😂💀
There is so much empathy with Adam watching this.
ooh Adam .... i loved watching your eyes back n forth following the marbles! so fun!
Hey, Boss. This one I can't fix.
- Send it to Tested.
But it's not working?
- He'll fix it for the video.
As a joke?
- Sure.
haha, indeed. 😂
As an early backer (Kickstarter) and owner of this product, this video was fantastically entertaining to watch. Especially as an "old school" Mythbusters fan as well. A couple of points on the product Adam is testing here:
Yes, when I received my copy of the product I did have to adjust the tracks slightly. Interestingly, I had to go through almost the exact same process as Adam did. First, there was an issue of marbles getting stuck. No problem. Found the trouble spot and adjusted the track very slightly to allow the marble to pass unobstructed. I suspect, however, that this adjustment caused the next issue which was marbles falling off the track. Mine only happened to about 1 in 25 marbles though, so I had to really watch closely. Once located, however, I did the same thing as Adam and slightly adjusted the outside rail of the track in order to keep the marble on it. Mine now works with 100% success.
I see others below commenting about how easy it should be to make this product better than they believe it is. My only advice is to visit the campaign page and read the project updates. The creators of this product care about so many things and really did their best deliver both their vision and a solid product. So, hopefully as an actual owner of one of the devices I hope this serves as a more solid "review" than the speculators below. :)
Honestly I think that part of the joy of this kind of toy is the satisfaction of tweaking it until you get it to run perfectly and reliably. It's a fidget toy of sorts
Videos like this where you're clearly still a kid at heart are some of my favorite!
I used to sell these at work and they would always stop or jump the track at the exact same spots as your did. It’s honestly pretty validating watching Adam make the exact same tweaks to it that I did!
Not sure if I should feel more or less nerdy that Adam also got excited about the cardboard quality and packaging
I think it's because it is such a nice looking object that Adam really took the time to tune it. Nice job.
I saw hints in the comments of a couple of these, but I'd begin here:
1. In marble run v2, make the rails slightly further apart to presumably elimnate the chance that the marble would escape sideways due to excessive velocity.
2. Before shipping out sets of balls, build a device at the factory to sort thousands of balls by size. Ship only CLOSE sizes with a given set to reduce inconsistency.
3. Adam, you went right into bending rails--but what if the center tower supporting everything was the only thing misaligned in the beginning? Seems like the start of an endless chase for alignment. :-) Aside from a bubble level which wouldn't seem precise enough, could there be a one-use leveling jig for the customer to use following shipping? Then have three feet on the base to tweak with screws (or just bend the tower), but I'd still argue this could be corrected with suggestion (1).
All this is said having never built a marble run, but I've imagined doing so MANY times! :-)
“Here’s the model for Adam, we hand fitted the parts to make sure it works for the video”.
“What do you mean? I just grabbed one off the shelf and shipped it to him yesterday?”
“YOU DID WHAT?!?!”
@@g60force Yikes..
Yet Adam is beside himself! "Oooo... I have a tool for that!" LOL
Mine worked perfectly out the box. The manual has simple troubleshooting steps for these issues. You're supposed to pivot the inner/outer bars as opposed to bending the entire track so much. But this actually looked fun troubleshooting
That machine became a perfect toy for any of us like Adam who likes to manipulate the world and devices around them... :) Making a machine work better, or as perfectly as it is capable of is actually hugely satisfying - this machine went up several notches in entertainment level immediately it had a marble stop somewhere! Cheers from Oz, I really like the manual operation, it's not just a battery powered thing that has no more operator input beyond fitting some batteries - mechanisms that do not use batteries are far too under-rated...
Very satisfying sound of the marbles rolling down the track
The slow motion feature built into the camera on your phone could have probably helped you identify where the problem is without relying on the naked eye. You could probably even bank all the corners so the marbles go really fast. That is a very cool gadget.
Adam Savage may be the only person on the whole planet saying "I don't want a Newton's cradle" while playing with some marbles :D
When I was a kid the science centers and some malls around me had these kinetic pool call sculptures by George Rhoads.
I'd watch them for as long as my parents or grandparents patients would last 😂
Adjustment like this is basically what I do for a living on mechanical packing machines lol. Its so frustrating when only one in 100 fail
Watching Adam get mesmerized by a thing you built must be one of the coolest feelings on the planet
This is so a one day build. So many things to show off, simply remarkable
This is the perfect gift for you. You get to problem solve and tinker then enjoy.
If I had paid for this myself and had this much trouble with it I would've been fuming but watching Adam tinker with it and try to fix it is so entertaining.
The duality of content I suppose. Watching it is great, not so much the struggle if it was me.
I feel like part of the fun is in tuning it correctly. You can tell Adam enjoys it.
17:37 pretty sure one just pulled a Rainbow road maneuver! I think it fell off the track, hit the glass, and fell back onto the lower level track.
Adam is happier because he needs to adjust this device. If it worked "outta the box", he wouldn't be able to use his tinkering skills. He forgot about us halfway through the video. See Adam at 18:04.
Im not sure whats more entertaining, watching the mechanism work or adam watching it to fux inconsistencies haha
This reminds me that you should really do a video with Matthias Wandel. You both deserve visibility to each others' viewers if they aren't already subscribed to one!
Honestly, it’s one of the most interesting and unique puzzles out there.
I can’t believe I’ve spent 9 minutes watching a dude troubleshoot a marble run toy, and it looks like I’m gonna be spending 10 more
The “Hey hey hey … doot” moment really resonated with me 🤣
That thing could keep my cat amussed for hours!
That company went from the highest of highs with Adam’s appreciation of their packaging, to the lowest of lows for the performance of their product.
Maybe the glass is there to catch marbles that jump off the track.
Ya think?
The purrrfect toy for Adam... one that he must tinker and fiddle with to make it work how he wants.
Was also thinking about the marketing department going trough all the emotions watching this
The smiles starting at 11:53 might be the most "Adam Savage" thing I've ever seen.
When it runs without the kinks it’s great
That awkward moment when you send something to an influential person hoping for a glowing endorsement, and the item craps the bed. So much for that potential sales bump.
I love the enjoyment he gets with problem solving!
Adam tinkering with this marble run is very much up his alley
250$ and you have to repair it right from Factory lol
"We'll send one to Adam Savage. It'll be a free commercial!"
"Look! He's showing off our gee-gaw!"
"Well ... shit."
I had to stop watching the video. It's embarrassing.
Something like this is bound to have imperfections, either during manufacturing or shipping. If you aren't the type like Adam, who likes to tinker, and isn't afraid of the possibility of ruining it, this may not be for you.
@@epsileththe faq are you talking about
The material should be an exact mold and less flexible, it’s slightly more rigid than wire hangers. $250 for something that you have to manually push but you can also plug in for a timed release / motion sensor release but it should just be plug and play where the marbles should have a little door externally to insert them. Idk if this was $50 on Amazon it is what it is but for $250 even with ShopPay or whatever is most popular now days for pay in 4 it is just a scam sadly.
250 and it doesn’t run on its own
Frustration knows no bounds 😂
So Adam, did you ever have/play with "Spacewarp"? nylon tubing for tracks, aluminum tubing for vertical supports, plastic yokes and clips and base... infinitely customizable marble run toy. I had a lot of fun with that as a kid, circa early 1980's.
As an engineer, I was (almost) screaming at the screen- No! Not that! Bend THAT!!!"
The look of satisfaction at the end is worth all that effort
How many others of us watched to the end waiting to see Adam take the whole thing apart and make a better one with lights
It is indeed a beatiful object, one that I would certainly enjoy futzing with for hours. Also, I suddenly feel the desire to watch the Marblympics again. Lol.
Would love to know if the little spheres are UV sensitive. To see what those would look like fluorescing in the dark as they make their way down the track would be awesome.
What ever heartburn the company may have had with Adam immediately tweaking the thing is completely outweighed by him being fascinated and playing with it. I'm not sure there's an amount of money that could have bought that shot.
They need to ship him one, let him fix it and ship it back. Then rinse and repeat. He had way to much fun fixing it. lol.
12:20 Adam in full derp mode. 😂
I think part of the fun is figuring it out and tweaking it. Im going to hint to my wife to get me one for Father's day.
7:03 just casually catches it in a box. If that was me, that ball would have bounced all the way into the shadow realm.
I suggest marking some of the marbles that fall off and see if they are always the same ones with issues.
What better example of the dichotemy between "good enough" and "perfect".
I doubt this could ever be tuned to absolute perfection since tuning for 1 ball at a time might result in multi-ball sticking or the weight of 1 causing another to jump the track, etc.
Add in different ball release intervals and the chaos of the real world is shown in all its glory :)
Would it be possible to change the camber of some of the turns? So a twist to raise the outer rail only? That would have been my guess.
Just like a kid on Christmas morning. Pure joy!!!
I had a similar issue with a kit called marble city. It was a mostly wooden one with a crank handle that moved the marbles up a gear lift. It was fun getting it setup and working but due to minor imperfections in the material it took awhile to get it to be consistent.
I would of liked different colour marbles, . Adam I didn't see you measure the gap between the rails, does the marble ride higher or lower in the trouble areas?
I love the concept. Too bad it needed so many tweaks though. One problem creates another problem that creates another problem...augh.
My heart feels for the company (not too much, for all the reasons everyone else pointed out.. Not a failure of the product, just how finicky it is!), but quite honestly... Turning pliers into no-mar pliers with a little bit of tape?!?!? Mind=blown! That is going in my mental toolbox!
I could watch marble runs all day long.
If there was a video created to make someone want to buy that marble run, this is the opposite. I have never wanted a thing less than I want that after watching this.
That little bit of sticky that is left from the corner that you initially need to peel up is easily removed by using the sticker itself. Put the sticker back over that small spot and quickly peel it back up a few times and it will remove any left over residue without leaving a single mark.
You could also use something like Goo-Gone but then you also need to thoroughly clean it with glass cleaner afterwards.
What a beautiful looking time sink.I love how it is mechanical and not electrical
OMG seeing Adam aged so much reminds me how time flies
I think the reason you're creating your Newton's Cradle is the weight of multiple marbles on that section is deflecting the track enough to cause them to stall
To avoid 'Newton's cradle', at any given point on the track there must be slope 'downhill' that will cause a marble to start rolling. A tricky point may be that not all marbles are perfectly round
Something that is $315 and supposed to work straight out of the box yet needing any sort of tool by the owner to fix... hard pass.
what would you pay?
Basically none of these work out of the box.
@@zachmoyer1849 well it was free to someone who is likely in the top 0.1% of enjoyers of this thing, implying that for us regular people it has no value as something that needs to be tinkered with
It's $250 for the design.
It's probably a shipping issue. Everything gets tossed around hard by overworked, underpaid warehouse workers because they have to in order to keep the throughput that is asked of them. It doesn't matter if it is labeled fragile or whatever, it's getting yeeted.
This is why packing everything properly and tightly with packing material is so important, unfortunately, but people don't generally learn that lesson until they experience it by having something they ship get broken.
It's very, very unfortunate. But this isn't actually the manufacturer's fault, beyond "maybe pack it full of packing material". But that has a tradeoff and a risk too - packing that material in, or removing it too vigorously could in itself bend the rails and throw it out of tolerance.
It could also be a marble issue, if they have poor tolerances. This is why steel marbles are often better, because they are often literally ball bearings made with incredibly precise tolerances. If it screws up with only a few marbles, you remove them and it should work fine.
All the marbles are of 3 different sizes that fall through one of 7 places, every time you tweak it you activate 2 other places that allow some of the marbles to fall some of the time...
At 1:46 Adam pulls out a sheet "How to adjust your Marbolous". The makers knew it would need tweaking.