Longtime buddies make ball tower using K’NEX rods

Two longtime buddies are breaking construction records. They used nothing more than K’NEX rods to make a 15-foot cube tower.

It took two months to build; one month at home and the other in the Aero Mark Inc. hanger in Idaho Falls.

There are a few things that make the tower special:

“This path right here. We are the only people, that we know of, who have pulled off something like this with a ball. Normally, this would go on a roller coaster, and that’s because the ball comes in and it changes directions six different times before it exits,” Robert Marcantonio said.

This originally started as a high school senior project, they said.

About 15 to 16 balls can be on the tower at the same time and go through 28 different paths.

A conveyor belt takes the marbles to the top.

There are about a quarter-million parts to the tower, Gregory Bayless said.

“It’s a mix of a marble machine and a Rube Goldberg machine but we call it a ball tower. You send it (the balls) down a path, which takes it around and does certain elements amd loops or or tricks or whatever and then it goes back to the tower at the end. So, on this, we have 28 different paths and each other those paths are unique in it’s own way,” Bayless said.

They took the tower down this week, but they do plan to make another one. This is not the first time. The two have made a 21-foot Ferris Wheel in the past.

For more of their work, click here. More K’NEX buildings can be found here.