Josh at 10to1pr.com contacted me about building a physical representation of how many stories his PR firm had created for its clients. His idea was to have each marble represent one story. I had a 3D printer at the time and told him I could definitely help bring his idea to life.

I built a semi-automatic Rolling Ball Sculpture that lines up the “stories” in a marble queue at the top. Release one marble and it travels through the sculpture until it reaches a tipping arm that releases the next one. From there, the process continues on its own.

Most of the elements represent different parts of the media and PR world. First up is his spinning logo — the white circle. Next are three bells that ring the three notes of the NBC audio trademark. The ball then rolls over a whisker switch that lights up an “ON AIR” box like you’d see in a TV studio.

In the center of the RBS are blocks that can be changed to display the month and day. The ball then spins around a “BREAKING” sign above the word “NEWS.” Another whisker switch activates flashbulbs around a press conference before the ball makes the company motto rock back and forth: “It takes 10 good things said about your company to take away 1 bad.”

From there, the ball rolls past a “Print/Online” sign, a tipping arm rocks a TV, and the marble spins around a microphone before reaching a social media carousel. The carousel includes the Facebook thumbs-up, the Twitter bird and an Instagram logo.

Finally, the marble enters a section of pipe and drops through a water spigot into a container. Josh planned to line up the filled containers as a physical, visual representation of all the stories his company had created for its clients. One marble, one story.

I created some of the 3D-printed parts myself, while others came from freely available files on Thingiverse.

100% stainless steel, TIG welded.