ROKR - Marble Run (LG504)

Was searching for the next build kit and I ran into the products made by ROKR and decided to give it a shot. So following is my build experience of the Marble Run kit (LG504).

They have a lot of different kits and this was my first build with wooden pieces. The pieces are primarily wooden, with some steel shafts and plastic shaft sleeves, a total of 233 pieces. The "marbles" are steel balls. A small sandpaper and a wax stick is also provided. This kit is rated a 4 out of 5 for difficulty level.

The packaging is awesome. Pieces are lazer cut and are precise and fairly easy to punch out. The instruction booklet is descent enough. It would have been great if it was color coded instead of monochrome. At various points in the build there are QR codes which when scanned via a mobile device will show a video of that step to assist with the build. Each wooden sheet and each piece on it is maked clearly. There are a good amount of extra pieces, so there were a few left overs. In my case I was left with 2 B16, 2 B17, 2 C24, C11, C18, C27, and a E3. Then on The G series 20 G1s, (I broke one), 1 G2, 2 G3, 1 G4, 1 G5, 1 G6 and 2 G7. A good amount of the plastic yellow/orange shaft sleves, a few steel shafts and a couple of stickers. There are some errors and some not so clear instructions though which I will talk about shortly.

Took my time with the initial steps and during some of the complicated steps later on in the build. Some pieces are very small and delicate and difficult to handle, especially the G series.

Above are examples of the markings on each sheet, and the two tools that are provided to help with measuring the length of the steel shafts, to attach the plastic steel shaft sleeves and to wrench the nuts. The wrench is used primarily at step 21, otherwise I ended up using it as a back stop when sliding in the plastic shaft sleeves.

Above are some of the examples of the initial building blocks. These steps are fairly straight forward. Did light sanding as I stepped through and verified that all pieces fit snugly.

The above setup is pretty awesome, as it acts a rocker or swing. The ball is used as a counter weight.

The first error in the directions is at step 20, where one more F33 is required as shown in the above pictures. The part is provided but the instructions stop at 9 pieces, but it should mention 10. A total of 8 F33 pieces are required at this step.

At step 21 we get the first glimpse of the gears in motion.

Then one another classic touch that this kit has is the above piece, which gives this kit the iconic sound.

Above is another good example where the parts and instructions are clearly marked, so need not have to guess how the pieces connect. The "1" and "2" mark in the 2nd picture above aligns with "1" on A19 and "2" on A20. Just have to take the time to understand the instructions and match it accordingly to the pieces.

The tower is another neat little setup with a good amount of complicated connections.

Step 34 is the first occurence when I had to glue the pieces together as I had trouble plugging in the G1 and G2 pins. If I had known that I was going to be left with extras in the end I could have tried the pins. In hindsight, glue is better option than those small wooden pins. Glue is not provided in the kit so I used my trusted Gorilla glue that I use on my regular wooden projects.

Continued to mount each module on the base plate and things were slowly taking shape. While working on the slides there are some gaps and those are fine, as the slope has to right for the balls to roll down.

Step 50, is the first and only occurence where in I broke a part. I was able to glue it back in place using the Gorilla glue.

Next few steps are pretty complicated and tight fit but took my time and I was able to fit everything together.

Final product shown above and now it was time for unit testing. So the balls did ride up through the column and did slide down fine around the tower but they were not entering the top wheel/gear and were getting stuck at the entrance of the wheel.

First I thought there wasn't enough clearence for the balls to enter the wheel and maybe I did not attach some piece properly. So I carefully took the wheel off and compared it to instructions in step 26. I thought about swapping E11 with A17, but then the wheel wouldn't align properly with the other gears. As I was reviewing what would have gone wrong, I saw that the holes in the first picture above are wider than the holes in the 2nd picture, which is the other side of the same wheel. So the side with the larger hole should be where the balls will enter into the wheel and I realized that I had the wheel facing the wrong way. This step has a QR code too so looks like a very common spot where folks make mistakes. Re-attached the wheel correctly and the whole model came to life.

Using Lego mindstorms EV3 built a crank system as shown below.

And here it is in action.