The Power of asking 'Why?'

Thank you to all Wintergatan Patrons regardless if you are backing through youtube memberships or Patreon!

Marble Machine Engineering Discord Server:

Video edited By Martin and Hannes from the Trainerds Youtube Channel:

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[bizmansion]

The only thing I don't love about the machine is that there are now years of Martin not making music, and I feel like that cost is just tremendous. I miss your music

[tjtobin]

This channel should be a master class in why engineers have project leads that keep them on track...

[ellieban]

I think there’s a huge “why” missing from this list: Martin, you love mechanical music machines and are utterly fascinated by the beauty of the mechanisms needed to tease soulful music from cold metal. It’s as clear as day to me that you want to make something that makes other people feel the way you feel when you stand in Siegfried’s Mechanical Music Cabinet. That’s why the 10ft engineered version doesn’t meet your goals, and it’s why you want the machine to play dynamic music.

[TheChrisYeah]

“Why should a machine be able to play like a human? This is a dumb design requirement.” YES!

Martin, I have been waiting years to hear you say this!!

[Sharlenwar]

Martin, I don't look at all of your marble machines as failures. Failure in the sense you didn't do a world tour with them, but you still learned, and I hope you had fun while you were doing what you were doing. Now you have a good understanding of what you need to do and so with that experience you will move forward with whatever project you tackle. I wish you great success, you are going to reach it, just keep going.

[dazley]

Before Martin falls into another rabbithole again: the reason "because i want to" is absolutely legitimate for a project like this.
youre not here to solve a technical issue, like an engineer. No one really asked for marbles playing music, and the world doesnt depend on it.
Youre not here to reinvent the wheel nor invent something completely new that would revolutionise the world.
Your Marble Machine is a machine not in the sense of a lathe or mill, its a sculpture, an expression of yourself.
Your goals arent necessarily financial, your goals are to express yourself through this machine. otherwise it's a waste of time if all you could do is just use a bunch of solenoids and a computer to play the instruments.
Theres a guy who builds a marble clock. You might want to get in touch with him ;)

[nolivesmatter.]

5:43 i miss those days when he made songs for his videos with those things

[zsupermicrowave_]

I watched this video a couple of hours ago and now I'm in my bed relaxing a bit, but at a certain point I really felt the need to go back to this video and say thank you.
I love how you're documenting this journey from the start, this is the most important part of all projects and people always hide it.
You showing this process to everyone is the best lesson that I could have had for project planning and management, I'm sure that all the things that I'm learning from your videos will be super useful in my life and I really need to say thank you Martin for all of this.
I'll make sure to remember your lessons and honor you by not failing on my next project

[Dmitry_IMHO]

I live in Slovakia, in my daughter’s school, in the morning, I always can hear in the hallway your “marble machine” playing. So you have already achieved one of your goals. People like to listen to it even without looking on it. Just know it.

[Skjoldmc]

At this point it's the Marble Machine 4. The third marble machine died in the planning phase.

[fleeb]

I work as a software engineer. Our team asked this very question today. In some ways, we didn't need to know... we could have just continued doing the task requested of us without knowing the answer. But, if we wanted to function both as engineers and artists, we needed to know. Because without knowing why, we can not modify the requirements while working on the project to make it better. So, weirdly, I don't view asking 'why' as an engineering question. It is an artists question, as applied to engineering.

[polychronisdoumpas]

You will be surprised how a lot of big things are made bc of a 'why not?' It always surprises me

[PollyBonanzas]

This makes sense to me. Achievability is important. Not that you can’t make a massive, overcomplicated marble machine, but something more manageable makes more sense. In the end, I just want to hear more cool music you and your band mates create.

[TheBookDoctor]

I don't think this process reduces my interest in watching the videos. Rather, I'm finding that the lessons you're sharing about planning and project management, clarifying goals, etc., are proving to be very useful in my own life and work. I know me, and I would not have set out on my own to learn about project management. So for you to do that and to share the journey with me is an incredible gift and a benefit. It's very interesting, and gives me new and better ways to think about my own life. I will definitely keep watching!

[johnfrian]

The clips of the previous machine(s) playing music while parts are shaking and moving all over the place, huge cogs turning, funnels visibly struggling to catch the wildly falling marbles, the crude levers that manipulate parts of the geometry, a fully integrated bass guitar that looks like a wooden borg machine has assimilated it.. The artist working overtime with their hands to flip levers and play notes on the bass while stomping away at a floor pedal or cranking a crank for power. And it plays enjoyable music. It's absolutely mesmerizing!

[Danny-sbjd]

"I dare to do exactly that"
I'M NOT FUCKN LEAVIN

[yorisfreshie]

This seems to be going in a great direction! Seeing you go from the design goal of "greatest mechanical music machine of all time" to "fun" has been a huge relief, cause after the bass slide videos i was convinced the machine will never be.
Also I really enjoy the learning to plan videos and don't mind them at all. For this one and the previous one i have been sitting down with a notepad and writing down ideas i could use for my future projects!

[XanBos]

The one thing you may not know, is there those of us who are here for the long haul. Ok so you take a break before actually starting the next build. That’s ok. Those who truly believe in you will be here until the end. (I’m included in that) There is probably more than just seeing another machine being built that keeps me here, but I won’t go into that. What I will say is that you have sparked a fire that I think will keep people here to see this until the end.

As an artist I never ask why…I usually reply with why not? Because mostly when someone wants to know why, I come back with”because I can” and that is reason enough. We don’t need to validate beyond our own understanding of what we can do, to make something from our mind, and bring it to fruition.

Keep moving forward, and you will get there.❤❤

[akaHarvesteR]

You can see Martin is rising out the right side of a Dunning-Kruger skill chart:

MM1: he doesn't know what he doesn't know. This is the blissful, gleeful experimentation phase.

MMX: He knows how much he doesn't know. This is where things get a loss less fun, as you realise now how difficult the task really is, but lacking the skills to get it done, you just know what the _correct_ way to do it is.

MM3 (prototyping): He now doesn't know how much he knows. Now Martin has new skills, but it still feels like newly acquired knowledge, and every new skill learned is a new hammer, to which everything is nails.

MM?: this is the other end of the valley. You know exactly how much you know, and with that comes the wisdom to _choose_ the things you want to do, simply because you want to do them, and you know now that you can.

This fourth phase is I think called the Plateau of Mastery, and it is as positive as the 1st phase.

Martin deciding he wants to make it because he loves it and because it's fun means he seems to be cresting the edge of the plateau.

...I hope 😅

[mrjjj]

This channel went from "Let's build a marble machine" to "Let's learn project management"