Austin Granger of St. Paul, MN, may be the world’s greatest K’nex builder. His YouTube channel has over 4 million views, and his creations include a K’nex laser etcher and a K’nex harmonograph. However, he is most well known for his gigantic ball machines, tangled pathways that guide balls to down convoluted pathways, as well as motorized lifts that carry the balls back up to the top after they’ve run their course.
The Works Museum in Bloomington, MN recently hired Austin to build the world’s largest K’nex ball machine. It stands over 23 feet tall, has 100,000 K’nex parts, and features 2 lifts, 3 motors, and 8 descent paths. There is a 20-foot free fall, a 8-foot spiral, and a 60-foot-long path that descends from the ceiling, with a total of 450 feet of track. It is over twice as big as the previous record-holder, and took about 4 months to build. [via TwinCities.com]