Marbles, Magnets, and Music (Synchronized)

January 12, 2018 10:13 PM

Kinetic artist Mark Robbins of DoodleChaos made waves across the internet a few months ago when he perfectly synced a custom course from the Line Rider game to Edvard Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King. As astounding as it was to watch the digital game and audio sync up, Robbins took things a step further by making a series of IRL Rube Goldberg-like contraptions with marbles, blocks, and magnets that plays perfectly with Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers. The feat required listening to the waltz hundreds of times which he says resulted in him “going a bit crazy.” (via)
posted by Johnny Wallflower (11 comments total)

Okay, that started out great and then turned delightful and then became me laughing out loud and clapping with joy. Thank you so much for posting this!
posted by hippybear at 10:51 PM on January 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

That was great. I watched it, then called the child over to watch it again.
posted by frimble at 11:57 PM on January 12, 2018

I missed that earlier Mountain (Bi)King post. Both that and this ‘waltzing magnetic flowers’ creation are remarkable. This one is like a low-budget OK Go video, but with much better music.
posted by LeLiLo at 12:09 AM on January 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

fantastic - even better when lit
posted by growabrain at 1:45 AM on January 13, 2018

Good gravy.
posted by lucidium at 6:45 AM on January 13, 2018

Charmed, I'm sure!
posted by Oyéah at 10:09 AM on January 13, 2018

This brought real delight to my mother-in-law, home on hospice care. Thank you for that.
posted by InkaLomax at 10:17 AM on January 13, 2018 [4 favorites]

Hippybear basically just delivered an eerily precise play by play of what just happened to me. The only thing missing were the tears of transported joy.

Apparently I’m really sleep deprived, and also I really fucking love Tchaikovsky. Go figure. ❤️❤️❤️
posted by ZakDaddy at 11:53 AM on January 13, 2018 [1 favorite]

Laughing out loud with delight at this. Thank you!
posted by Songdog at 6:19 PM on January 13, 2018

Amazing, the little loop-the-loops the marbles make around the magnet donut make me wonder if anyone's done The Nutcracker with acrobats instead of dancers.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 5:14 AM on January 14, 2018

This post was the first I'd heard of the Line Rider video and now I'm obsessed with it. It's not just the painstaking execution but the way they pull off the narrative and all the tiny details - wow.
posted by kersplunk at 7:43 AM on January 14, 2018