Who said awesome gadgetry had to be electronic? This device is a very impressive binary number adding system. It uses marbles, and a very ingenious wooden contraption made by Mathias Wandel, a very skilled woodworker. It uses a seemingly simple rocker mechanism, where when one marble is in the slot, the rocker is in the hold position, and when another is dropped into the feed of the same numerical value, the rocker is switch to release the first marble, and carries on the second marble to the next numerical value (example: Marble dropped in slot 1, and then a second one is dropped into 1, the original marble is released from the system, and the added marble moves down to slot 2).
No matter what scenario you put this machine in, it will correctly add it. If you hit 64, which is one value higher then the max of 63 in binary, the machine zeros out automatically, just like a computer would.. Everyone around the office was watching the impressive video, along with other videos out on his website for his other marble machines, and it became pretty crazy for a while, but everyone seems quite impressed. (More pictures/video after the More tag)
This is the front (obviously). The top is where the marbles sit until the slider is pulled, allowing them into the adding system area. This is all well demonstrated in the video.
Found via Wandel’s woodworking website: http://woodgears.ca/
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