This is one where the story absolutely belongs in the description. It explains why the sculpture exists.

This very large wall-mounted Rolling Ball Sculpture was built for Children’s Hospital Colorado in Colorado Springs. The inspiration for the project came from the George Rhoads rolling ball sculpture at the children’s hospital in Denver.

Years earlier, the parents of a boy named Noah spent many days and nights at that hospital while Noah was being treated for a congenital heart condition. While waiting through procedure after procedure, they often found themselves in the lobby watching the George Rhoads sculpture operate. Noah recovered, grew up, and is now studying to become a doctor himself.

When his parents learned that a children’s hospital was being built in Colorado Springs, they decided to give something back. They donated the resources to have a rolling ball sculpture built for the new hospital, and that’s when I was contacted to create this piece.

I was using a 3D printer at the time, which gave me a great way to add details that connected the sculpture to Noah and the hospital. I made several flat gravity wells, bears holding a heart to represent Noah’s heart condition, rocking hearts, a violin for the instrument Noah played, balloons based on the hospital logo, and smaller bears representing the hospital’s location near the Rocky Mountains.

There are five different tracks, and most have guardrails to help keep the balls where they belong. There’s a tall skinny coil, a long vertical zig-zag, a loop d’ loop, a large free-swinging tipping arm with a bear attached, a ball-collecting tipping arm, a flat spiral and lots of back-and-forth track. This RBS uses 1-1/2" acetal resin balls.

The sculpture is set to run slowly and is now installed in the hospital lobby, where children, parents and families can watch it while they’re there — much like Noah’s parents watched the George Rhoads sculpture years before.

My shop isn’t large enough to actually hang something this size on a wall, so the video shows the sculpture attached to the temporary mounts I used while building and testing it.

100% stainless steel, TIG welded.