Q-BA-MAZE

Marble Run Base

 

These seven cubes provide a sturdy square base for your own Q-BA-MAZE design experiments. This base is from one of the designs that comes with each 50-pack. It is a good base for beginners. I use this when introducing Q-BA-MAZE to five-year-olds or sixty-five-year-olds : )

For a bigger design challenge, you can make structures that have only a single cube as the base.

When the lowest cubes in a structure are bottom-exit cubes, the marbles will gather in these. If you want the marbles to shoot out of the base, use single-exit or double-exit cubes as the lowest cubes instead.

See the Q-BA-MAZE plans page for examples of many structures and many different base designs.

Starting from the seven-cube square base, the photos below show a few steps in the construction of an experimental tower design using the cubes of a 50-pack:

         

In the first photo, notice how four cubes can cantilever out to the one side of the seven-cube square base. See this earlier blog post for more ideas about cantilevering with Q-BA-MAZE.

Happy cubing!

Design Thinking with Cubes, Components, and Constructions

The photo above shows the design called Q50/plan01 disassembled into several components. The components are made from two or more cubes, and these components can be rearranged into new marble run constructions.

If you take a close look at the plan that comes with each 50-pack or at this plan from the Q-BA-MAZE website, you can see which cubes make each of the components shown in the top photo:

• Cubes 1-7 are the "base" (front middle in the photo)*
• Cubes 8-11 are a "4-cube scrambler" (back row, far right in photo)
• Cubes 12-22 are a "9-cube scrambler" with a "2-cube switch back" on top (back row, second from right in photo)
• Cubes 23-34 are a "double helix" (back row, third from right in photo)
• Cubes 35-36 are a "2-cube column" (back row, far left in photo)

* This "base" composed of cubes 1-7 is good stable starting point for any new construction.

The photo below shows Q50/plan01 on the left and a completely new construction on the right made from the same components just rearranged in a new order. Working with components like this is a faster way to design and build new constructions compared with building one cube at a time. An understanding of components will also assist your design thinking as you imagine your own new constructions.

Have fun inventing and building with Q-BA-MAZE!

A 20-Pack Design with Three Jumps

This is my new favorite marble run construction with the 20-pack. The features I like are:

• The base is just one bottom-exit cube.
• There are jumps out of each of the three double-exit cubes.
• An upper part of the structure appears to float (the weight of the construction does not come straight down through a column, but is diverted in a mini-spiral).

If you would like to build this construction:

• You can try just copying this construction by looking at the photo.
• You can follow this plan (which comes in pdf format).
• You can follow this Excel plan (see the post on Q-BA-CAD to learn more about using Microsoft Excel as "CAD" software for drawing, saving, and emailing your Q-BA-MAZE designs).

(If you make this one, remember the trick to get the balls out: just slide the construction to the edge of the table with one hand and catch the balls in your other hand.)

Cantilevers, Counter-balance, Components and other Craziness

This post provides some design ideas for making your own marble run structures.

This photo above shows a blue "straight-away" component cantilevering to the left, while a green "straight-away" component counter-balances the structure by cantilevering back to the right.

In this post, I illustrate a number of different "components" that can be built into a complete construction. I use the base configuration from Q20/plan03 (cubes 1-6) and then 4 blue single-exit cubes and 4 green single-exit cubes to create the various components.

This is a six-cube "zig-zag" component. Each green cube makes a right-turn and each blue cube makes a left-turn. The left-right-left pattern makes the zig-zag. An eight-cube "zig-zag" would have required further cubes on the opposite side as a counter-balance.

This is an eight-cube "switch-back" component. Each single exit-cube aims the pathway back under the previous single-exit cube. The result is very stable tower form that is just one cube wide and two-cubes deep.

This is an eight-cube "switch-back helix" component. The blue single-exit cubes each rotate 90 degrees with respect to the blue cube above. The green single-exit cubes aim the pathway back under the previous blue single-exit cube. The result is what appears to be a central blue column wrapped with a sporadic green helix.

This is an eight-cube "1x3 switch-back" component. The component is one cube wide and three cubes deep. The pathway goes straight through two cubes and then the third cube bends the path back under the previous two cubes. The set of four green cubes could be rotated 90 degrees with respect to the blue cubes and then you'd have a "rotating 1x3 switch-back".

This is a six-cube "straight-away" component. The two cubes on the left are necessary to counter-balance the weight of the "straight-away" as it leans far out to the right. It is not necessary for a structure to be symmetrical to have balance. There just needs to be enough weight to keep things from tipping. As you get more daring with your own designs, you'll have to experiment with trial and error. If your structure falls down, you probably went beyond some physical limit. Pushing these limits is part of the fun!

This is an eight-cube "helix" component. More specifically, this is a "2x2 counter-clockwise single-helix." Each cube turns the pathway to the left as it goes down, so the pathway spins counter-clockwise. If each cube turned the path to the right, it would be a clockwise helix. Looking at this helix from above, it fits on a 2x2 cube grid.

This is an eight-cube "2x2 counter-clockwise double-helix" component. It is much like the single-helix, but a second helix fills in the empty cantilevered spaces of the first helix. Here, one helix is green and the other is blue. DNA is a double-helix. Question: Is the DNA double-helix clockwise or counter-clockwise? and why?

This is an eight-cube "3x3 counter-clockwise double-helix." The two helixes will never touch. Double-exit cubes can be used occasionally as a "3x3 double-helix" is built as a means of connecting and stabilizing the two pathways. Cube #34 in Q50/plan01 is a double-exit cube used in this way.

This is an eight-cube "3x3 counter-clockwise single-helix."

The list of components goes on and on. Take a look at the post on 10 Billion Trillion Combinations and you will get an idea of just how many configurations are possible.

Have fun experimenting and exploring and finding the coolest components for your crazy constructions!

Why Cantilever? Example #1

Below is a Google Streetview of the Minneapolis Central Public Library by Cesar Pelli.

CLICK HERE to explore all sides of the Library via Google Maps (hint: move the little orange man to NICOLLET MALL and rotate the view to look back at the Library to see how the roof cantilevers on the other side as well)

Here is a night time view of the roof cantilevering out over Hennepin Avenue (a main thoroughfare in the city).

REASONS FOR THE CANTILEVER

1) This roof clearly announces the location of the entrances on either side of this public building. The roof grabs a person's attention and leads the eye to the entryway. The Library is sort of two separate buildings with a glass enclosed public space in between them. This huge cantilevering metal roof shelters this public space between the two halves of the Library. In this photo looking straight up from under the cantilever, you can look all the way through the glass-enclosed public space and out the other side of the Library. The entry vestibule on this side of the building doubles as a heated bus shelter. If you look closely on the ground level on the right, you can see what is probably the best selection and display of bus maps in the city. A coffee shop in the corresponding position on the opposite side of the building provides another bit of street level activity -- something sorely missing in Minneapolis generally, but sensitively planned for here. I think it is this combination of bold form and sensitive planning which makes this an already much-loved building in the city.

2) From a distance, this roof announces the location of the building itself. From many blocks away, the roof can be seen jutting out over the street. Special clearances from the city were necessary to allow this. Because this is a public destination, it makes sense for such a variance from regulations to be granted.

3) This roof provides horizontal counterpoint in a vertical city. The buildings behind the library are vertically oriented and reaching for the sky. The Library takes up a full city block, so it can have quite a bit of square footage without having to grow so tall. Without the cantilevering roof, the Library would just be a short building. The roof, however, emphasizes its horizontality.

4) Contextualism: The roof has a relationship to regional culture. Frank Lloyd Wright pioneered this idea of boldly cantilevered roofs in his Prairie Style houses, most notably, in the Robie House. Wright's idea was that on the flat landscape of the prairie, a roof should emphasize the horizontal. The roof of the Library, interestingly, is like an upside down version of the hip roof of the Robie House.

5) Contextualism (part 2): The Library and the Wells Fargo Building, both by Pelli, are a study in comparison and contrast. The Wells Fargo building can be seen in the photos as a glowing amber tower in the background. It has a stone facade with strong vertical elements that mimic the vertical column structure behind. The Library has a similar stone facade, but it emphasizes the horizontal instead by rimming each of the floor plates and thus highlighting a different structural component of the building. Pelli established an architectural vocabulary in the earlier Wells Fargo Building and is both repeating and adjusting it in the Library. The cantilevered roof participates in this dialogue between the two buildings.

I shot the photos of the Library at night because there is an optical illusion at night that makes the cantilever appear to be far longer than it really is. Since the roof is not too heavy, the columns supporting it can be slender and from a distance they sort of disappear.

Next buildings in this series on cantilevers are the new Walker Art Center by Herzog and De Meuron and the new Guthrie Theater by Jean Nouvel. Eventually, I'll also make a post about ways people can experiment with their own cantilevers using the Q-BA-MAZE cubes.

Desktop Sculpture in Stone or Polycarbonate

photo: cover of the book Worlds Within Worlds: The Richard Rosenblum Collection of Chinese Scholars' Rocks

DESKTOP SCULPTURE

Q-BA-MAZE is a new form of desktop sculpture, but the idea of desktop sculpture for contemplation goes back more than 1000 years in China -- in the form of 'Scholar's Rocks'. Chinese scholars collected 'fantastic' rocks and displayed them on wooden bases. The rocks might look like clouds, landscapes, people, leaping tigers and so forth, or they could just be abstract forms.

The World of Scholars' Rocks exhibit in 2000 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (with about 30 stones from the Rosenblum Collection) was my formal introduction to the subject. I say 'formal', because several years earlier, I had unwittingly purchased a scholar's rock of my own while rummaging in an alleyway antique shop in Guangzhou, China (while on a weekend break from my job in the Architecture Department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong). Having collected rocks since childhood, this richly veined stone struck me as the perfect souvenir. Only with the exhibit did I come to realize that my stone from Guangzhou was likely a scholar's stone separated from its base.

In the introductory essay of, Worlds Within Worlds, Robert Mowry writes, "Chinese scholars' rocks might be characterized as favored stones that the Chinese literati and their followers displayed and appreciated indoors, in the rarefied atmosphere of their studios." (p 19). They are displayed "indoors on desk, table, or bookshelf, though an especially large example would be set directly on the floor. Regarded as 'stand-alone' items, scholars' rocks are shown individually and are characteristically presented on carved wooden stands -- like fine bronzes and porcelains -- in order to orient and support the rocks and to distinguish them from the mundane." (p. 20).

The stone on the Worlds Within Worlds cover (top) is a stone from Lake Tai (Taihu), near Suzhou, China. The stones may either be found in nature or carved to appear natural -- Richard Rosenblum considered this particular example a carved stone. Stones with good holes all the way through are particularly prized. Mowry writes, "Although the lake (Taihu) produced limestone rocks with naturally dissolved holes and sand-washed surfaces in early times, the supply of such rocks had been considerably depleted by the late Tang period. By the Northern Song, local families had begun to sculpt rocks from the abundant native limestone, after which they placed their creations in the lake for several decades of natural finishing." (p.27)

THOUGHTS ON COMPOSITION

This Taihu stone is a dynamic form -- it appears to be moving like rising steam, a blowing cloud, or vaguely like a human arm bent at the elbow. It cantilevers boldly to the left and the weight of this gives the sense that it could overturn (counterclockwise). The red line at 'B' highlights the angle at which the wooden base meets the stone. This meeting line is rotated clockwise from horizontal in a way that visually balances the counterclockwise overturning implied by the cantilever. In opposition to these dynamic elements, the underside of the cantilever is horizontal (as demonstrated by line 'A'). If this underside were tipped one way or the other it would imply a movement. But the horizonality suggests stability and rest -- like the horizontal line made by still water in a glass.

Notice what happens if this Taihu stone is slightly adjusted, so that the wooden base meets the stone with a more horizontal connection. This forces the bottom of the cantilever to hang at an angle. It makes it appear as if the entire structure is wilting, drooping under its own weight, as opposed to the original compostition which appears to be floating upward like smoke.

Rosenblum also makes this interesting final point in his essay, "I am most fascinated by the thought that unlike other art, scholars' rocks are not fixed objects. They can be, and often have been remounted. They can be set in different positions, conjuring up new images that change their character altogether -- in effect, remaking them. This was something the Chinese did, and I have begun to do as well. Interacting with the rocks, moving them about, creating mounting environments for them and out of them, has brought me back to sculpture." (p 121)

The bottom image is a Photoshop simulation of the Taihu Scholar Stone remounted and utterly transformed.

And finally, a translation of the original composition into a Q-BA-MAZE marble run sculpture:

 

Dreaming of Metabolist Architecture

Photo: arcspace

Metabolist Architecture was a movement of the 60s and 70s and this apartment tower in Tokyo is one of the best examples -- the Nakagin Capsule Tower by Kisho Kurokawa. The repetition of simple modular units is a basic principal of architecture. The bricks in a wall, for example, are all the same size, repeated over and over, but capable of making so many different forms and enclosing so many different spaces. The Nakagin Tower uses an entire apartment as the modular unit instead of just a single brick.

One day I hope to make it to Tokyo, but this landmark building will problably not be there anymore -- it faces the wrecking ball due to both neglect and rising land values. So the Capsule Tower must live on in dreams.

This Q-BA-MAZE construction is how I imagine the Capsule Tower at night -- with each cube being a modular apartment unit:

   

This is Q

To give a full 3D view of this construction, we put it on a lazy susan, gave it a spin, dropped in some balls, and started filming.

Just three kinds of cubes go together to make this and all Q-BA-MAZE constructions. This one is made with less than three 50-packs.

Notice that the balls all collect at the bottom (rather than scattering on the floor). This is because we used the bottom-exit cubes to make the base. Whenever the bottom-exit cubes are used as the base, they act as "catcher" pieces.

The White Stripes: Living the Lego Dream

This is probably the coolest Lego thing ever. Lego forming a swimming pool with colorful spiral waves! A lead guitarist made from just 34 bricks and animated!

It is the video for "Fell in Love with a Girl", which is the second single released from The White Stripes' third album White Blood Cells. Released in 2002, it reached number one.

I have a DVD with this and other videos by the director Michel Gondry. It comes with a little book titled:

I've been twelve forever

The title is Gondry's self description. He is now 44 years old and the director of the films Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Science of Sleep (2006).

Isn't it funny that we grow up with adult voices telling us to "stop acting like a twelve-year-old" only to reach adulthood and to find one of the greatest industrial designers of the 20th Century stressing the importance to the design process of "the attitude of the child"? (See my Sept 1 post). And stepping into the present, to find Gondry producing such brilliant work by having just remained twelve (at heart)?

Here is the "making of video":

*the next coolest Lego thing I've seen is a Lego robot that can solve the Rubik's cube (I'll save that for another post)

Angels and Firecrackers

Charles Eames once said that in the "world of toys he saw an ideal attitude for approaching the problems of design, because the world of the child lacks self-consciousness and embarassment."

When I came across this statement in The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention (p. 139) it really jumped out at me. I have been doing a lot of play-testing with kids and adults and I have noticed how much more quickly kids learn. Children just proceed and experiment, they figure things out as they go along, they don't worry about rules, judgement or success.

The Eames House of Cards

The "world of the child" comment, led me to notice an underlying connection between the Eameses architectural design and their toy design (see this link for lots of photos of the interior and exterior of the Eames House). Both the Eames House and their toy the House of Cards have simple repetitive structural systems. The structural systems work, but it is the play of color and the collections/images of diverse things (in the house and on the cards) that brings them richness and meaning. Playing with the cards and living in the house are similar activities -- both involve a continual rearrangement of things, a richness of ideas that can come together in ways which inspire new unexpected and creative thoughts. Look closely at the photo here. Who ever thought of "angels and firecrackers in an archway"? These things don't go together. Such a combination is against the rules, but there are no rules in "the world of the child."

For more information on Charles and Ray Eames, see this website related to the Legacy of Invention exhibition organized by the Library of Congress and the Vitra Design Museum.