Q-BA-MAZE

Daring New Tower

This is Tower 15 -- a daring new tower design submitted by Mitch. It uses the cubes from two 50-packs and includes a number of jumps for the marbles.

Mysterious thinking marble found by Amazon in New York City!

A mysterious thinking marble found by Amazon in New York City?! What would Herodotus say?

The Priestess at the Oracle says, "There is a peak at the bottom of the valley."

Huh? What does all of this mean?

OK, in drier terms, here's what's going on:

The modular Q-BA-MAZE marble maze is composed of three types of cubes. The mystery marble action happens in the double-exit cubes (see video). A double-exit cube has a spherical interior (concave up) which is intersected by a torus (convex up). The torus (donut shape) is lower than the sphere within the cube. A marble entering from a side of the double-exit cube has momentum which causes it to rock back-and-forth on the concave-up sphere (think of this as a valley) as energy is lost due to friction and wind resistance, the marble slows and eventually comes to rest at the bottom of the sphere. But the actual "bottom of the sphere" has been replaced by the "top of the torus" (think of this as a peak). The marble is now precariously balanced on the torus and will randomly fall to the left or right. So, paradoxically, there is a peak at the bottom of the valley.

Still doesn't make sense?

A video is worth a million words (so here is the link again). At the end of the video there is a demonstration of the "mysterious thinking marble." This took place at the Toy Fair in New York City. The Toy blogger for Amazon.com, Laura McMullan, stopped by the Q-BA-MAZE booth and conducted this impromptu video interview on the spot.

(Stay tuned. We will soon be announcing a new Q-BA-MAZE game called Moose! Lucy just designed a Q-BA-MAZE moose from one 50-pack and it inspired a two-player game. Lucy and I play tested it this afternoon -- already a big hit in the office! : )

Toy Fair 2009 Q-BA-MAZE Booth: Sunrise!

The Sun is rising!

The Q-BA-MAZE Booth for the New York International Toy Fair of 2009 was a celebration of the plans page and all of the sculptural potential of the Q-BA-MAZE cubes: either following downloadable construction plans or using Q-BA-DRAW to make and upload plans of your own.

We talked with educators and toy store owners from all over the US and the world and are invigorated by the enthusiastic response we received.

Look for Q-BA-MAZE to follow up its recent Japanese distribution deal with further distribution in Europe and elsewhere in 2009!

Q-BA-MAZE Plans Page: A Free Resource of Ideas and Inspiration

The Q-BA-MAZE plans page is a free resource of ideas and inspiration. And it just keeps growing with all of the designs uploaded to us by people around the United States using our submissions page!

In these challenging economic times, people need to be able to do more with less -- so we regularly update the plans page with new designs for people to build which require just one or two Q-BA-MAZE packs.

After building free-form structures or following the instruction plans, a Q-BA-MAZE enthusiast can take the next step and record favorite designs using Q-BA-DRAW (Microsoft Excel required). The How To Draw video describes how to draw designs using Q-BA-DRAW. Once recorded in Q-BA-DRAW, a new design can be saved or printed for rebuilding later, it can be emailed to a friend or it can be submitted to the Q-BA-MAZE website.

As a boy, I would use all of my LEGOs in elaborate designs and it was always a bit of a disappointment to have to tear these apart in order to make anything new. I developed Q-BA-DRAW so that people could record their own favorite Q-BA-MAZE designs for rebuilding anytime in the future. Q-BA-DRAW helps people do more with less and extends our mission of inspiring creativity at the same time.

To get the word out to our retailers about the plans page, we have mailed each of them the 5 x 8 post card above which shows 20 of the Q-BA-MAZE designs.

Since the 20-pack makes such a nice little display stand, you may even see the Q-BA-MAZE plans page post card we sent displayed at your local toy store!

The annual Toy Fair in New York City is approaching. We will be showing many of the marble run sculptures from the Q-BA-MAZE plans page including those in the landscape scene at the top of this post: Palm Island, Sun and three butterflies.

.skp Format 3D Computer Design Files of Q-BA-MAZE Cubes Now Available

Fish Eight is now available in the .skp 3D computer design file format for anyone to use.

All of the Q-BA-MAZE Hot Colors and Cool Colors cubes are available as well!

We'll have more information in the future to assist you with how to use these.

The general idea, however, is this: IT'S FREE!!!!!