Make a homemade marble run

Are your kids into marbles? Making your own homemade marble run out of recycled bits and bobs is perfect to start them thinking about the basics of physics. Check out how complicated (or easy) you can make your fun new marble run. Watch the video tutorial below for inspiration.

What you need:

Raid your recycling bin for:

• egg cartons
• toilet rolls (about 10 is ideal)
• toothpaste boxes
• cardboard tubes from  the inside of garbage bag rolls
• 1 x big box to build your marble run in

You'll also need:

• Scissors
• Masking tape

Number of players:
1+

Activity:

Here's how to make a fun marble run out of recycled materials.

Start by cutting some of your toilet rolls in half.  Leave some whole, they will be good for pylons to hold up the chute. You can also use them as tunnels.

Tape your half rolls together lengthways to make a long chute for your marbles. You can make corners and curves by cutting and fitting two or more half rolls together.

Build it all inside a large cardboard box.

It's also a good idea to have your marble run go in at least two directions if you can.

Cut out some egg cups from the egg carton and put these at the ends of your chutes to catch the marbles.

Experiment with different ways to make the marbles go where you want them to. We put a little tab design on one bend so that the marble would sometimes turn the corner and sometimes go straight down the chute depending on how you sent it down.

• Thanks to our sister company Kidspot Australia for creating the instructional video.