wood+marbles=six bits

June 26, 2007 5:36 PM

Matthias Wandel's astounding wooding calculatory enigma. A woodworker turns his talents to binary mathematics via a cunning series of cats-eyes, clinkers and rounders. Plus many other marbled wonders. [this might be marbles]
posted by boo_radley (39 comments total)

Great post! I came across Matthias' original web site a few years ago and he has always been in my links. The things he makes out of wood are brilliant, and I always enjoyed returning to his site every few months to see what else he has been up to.
posted by punkrockrat at 5:59 PM on June 26, 2007

Double.

Just kidding, the adder is neato.
posted by smackfu at 5:59 PM on June 26, 2007

This table is pretty spiffy.
posted by smackfu at 6:07 PM on June 26, 2007

How about a machine that can play tic-tac-toe made from Tinkertoys?
posted by Marky at 6:13 PM on June 26, 2007

Nice. Had I only the money to comission...
posted by Samizdata at 6:22 PM on June 26, 2007

Breathtaking artistry and playful mathiness. I really enjoyed your post. Thanks.
posted by nickyskye at 6:35 PM on June 26, 2007

this is so cool! how does someone have the free time to build such a wonderful machine? (or is it really comissioned?)
posted by milestogo at 6:37 PM on June 26, 2007

Thank you for posting this. I saw a link to it somewhere earlier today but it was not done well and I failed to appreciate how cool it was and skipped it. This is really neat.
posted by caddis at 6:41 PM on June 26, 2007

milestogo -

I don't think it was commissioned.

I just wish I had the money to comission one.

As well as a few bucks to throw to this guy... I'd love to get my lab (AKA large room full of geek crap) redone in faux-Victorian geek...
posted by Samizdata at 6:46 PM on June 26, 2007

And, in case you missed it...

Geek geek geek geek geek.

hangs his head in shame at the terminal vocabulary failure...
posted by Samizdata at 6:46 PM on June 26, 2007

Holy cats! That is awesome!
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:54 PM on June 26, 2007

The video was awesome---I emailed it to my grade school teacher aunt; too bad those aren't available for purchase...
posted by acro at 7:05 PM on June 26, 2007

Matthias also wrote the ever-handy EXIF tool jhead.
posted by scruss at 7:14 PM on June 26, 2007

Jeebus. Wooden hinges. This guy and his father are a two-generation woodworking H-bomb.
posted by yhbc at 7:20 PM on June 26, 2007

Very cool. I shall have to use this video to help some of my co-workers who have troubles with the idea of binary adding. It's a great visual representation.
posted by quin at 7:47 PM on June 26, 2007

Great proof of concept, would be cool to see something like this used as a teaching tool for kids. Definite commercial potential.
posted by geoff. at 7:50 PM on June 26, 2007

This post should be tagged NSFW due to it's nerd-boner inducing properties.

"how does someone have the free time to build such a wonderful machine?"

This question is rarely if ever asked when discussing TV shows, dating, or flickr.
posted by billyfleetwood at 7:50 PM on June 26, 2007

That. Is. Beautiful.
posted by YamwotIam at 7:53 PM on June 26, 2007

Here's the link to the video
posted by acro at 8:03 PM on June 26, 2007

He's also the designer of the automated wooden cd-copying machine, here. & here.
posted by acro at 8:12 PM on June 26, 2007

Very, very cool.
posted by Zephyrial at 8:21 PM on June 26, 2007

This will Wandel.
posted by homunculus at 8:42 PM on June 26, 2007

Huh?
posted by wendell at 8:56 PM on June 26, 2007

Hmmm, if it only adds numbers....

I kid
posted by mattoxic at 8:58 PM on June 26, 2007

Awesome post, thank you.
posted by interrobang at 9:09 PM on June 26, 2007

Moving other parts of his awesome site, like his dad's sawmill page.
posted by nickyskye at 9:13 PM on June 26, 2007

I dunno, the idea is nice but the execution is pretty wooden.
posted by cortex at 9:31 PM on June 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

I dunno, the idea is nice but the execution is pretty wooden.

I agree. He really should branch out a little.
posted by kid ichorous at 9:45 PM on June 26, 2007

Wow, a 12 inch jointer. You'd think he'd also be smart enough to not push wood through it without any safety equipment, though. He won't look so smart without any hands...
posted by jewzilla at 9:57 PM on June 26, 2007

So, I read that as "Matthias Wandel's astounding wooding calculatory enema." Although, I'm still really glad I clicked on the link.
posted by bookish at 10:01 PM on June 26, 2007

He's also made a gear template for making wooden gears. I've been looking for something like this for ages!
posted by lekvar at 10:06 PM on June 26, 2007

Roy Underhill eat your heart out. Great post, I love this sort of thing.
posted by Sailormom at 10:48 PM on June 26, 2007

Don't miss the deeper links: Rolling Ball Web! (No, not that one!)
posted by Eideteker at 4:25 AM on June 27, 2007

I thought I was a geek until I saw this. Then I realized how far I have strayed from my home geekdom.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:13 AM on June 27, 2007

To be useful, I'd need a second machine to tell me that one plus two plus four plus eight plus sixteen is thirty-one.
posted by rlk at 6:34 AM on June 27, 2007

Yes, it needs a wooden binary-to-decimal converter on the end.
posted by pracowity at 6:56 AM on June 27, 2007

And mp3 support.
posted by cortex at 7:08 AM on June 27, 2007

absolutely marbleous.
posted by primer_dimer at 10:19 AM on June 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

Wow, quite awesome. And here I thought his only claim to fame was helping to start the (ostensibly) short-lived trend of urbexing my university's service tunnel system.
posted by thisjax at 6:52 AM on June 28, 2007