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SKYRAIL: INTRODUCTION AND PRINCIPLES
G
Congratulations for having chosen to play and learn with
SKYRAIL SUSPENSION the only marble run in the world
that reproduces the spectacular technology of SUSPEN-
SION BRIDGES.
The CENTRAL TOWER is an architectural marvel, very
light but rock solid, easy to lift and move around and, most
of all, extremely FUN to build. Just follow the detailed
assembly instructions included in this manual and in less
than an hour you will have completed a striking and futuri-
stic structure. Then assemble the rails and connect the
cables and you will have built an exciting aerial pathway
that will be the main attraction of your room.
With the RAILS of Skyrail Suspension you can build the
longest marble run in the world, spanning up to 40 feet, for
spectacularly aerial tracks, that even glow in the dark.
The track can be assembled in many different ways: some
are illustrated in the previous manual pages, but you can
invent many other ones freely expressing your creativity.
You can start from the base track illustrated in the
assembly instructions then you can simply move the rails
to different "floors" of the tower and adjust consequently
the length of cables. Or you can change completely the
shape of the track. There are no limits to your fantasy. You
can even build tracks on ground pillars without the suspen-
sion cables. With Skyrail Suspension you will always dis-
cover new ways of building.
Contrary to most marble runs with Skyrail Suspension
marbles don't travel only downward at constant speed, but
can accelerate impressively down steep slopes then climb
uphill until almost reaching a stop, roll quietly along flat
plateaus, and then again down chilling plunges at full
speed.
The ingenious (and world patented) CABLE-SYSTEM that
supports the tracks in mid-air is extremely easy to adjust:
in this way you can speed up or slow down the marbles
during their journey from the top of the tower to the bottom.
By reasoning and experimentation you will be able to find
the maximum speed that marbles can travel along the
track without exiting at the curves.
Here is our suggestion for a FUN
GAME that will stimulate your curio-
sity and will push you to experiment
and reason for a long time: with
your watch or a chronometer, TIME
how long it takes to the marbles to
run down the base-track. Now
design a new track configuration that will reduce to the
minimum the run time. But... careful, when marbles go too
fast they exit easily at the curves! You can also design the
opposite type of track, where marbles take the longest
time to descend. Try, it's not easy!
Skyrail Suspension is designed in such way that almost all
types of MARBLES can run along its tracks: marble sizes
from a minimum of 14 mm to a maximum of 21 mm, and
in any material, such as metal, plastic, wood, glass and in
any weight. Each marble type will run at different speeds
and will allow you to observe, experiment and discover the
laws of physics and to understand intuitively the funda-
mental principles. This is actually an exceptional educatio-
nal value that makes Skyrail Suspension unique and an
irreplaceable learning instrument.
For those of you that are more "scientific": Skyrail repre-
sents an "inclined plane" which allows you to experiment
with the 3 laws of "dynamics", like Galileo.
MAKE EXPERIMENTS AND DISCOVER PHYSICS
FORCES
SPEED: the speed of a
marble depends on many
factors: how steep is the
descent, the size of the
marble, its weight, what
material it is made of.
Make this experiment: drop
3 different types of marbles
together from the top of the track and notice in which way
they run down. If the first marble is slower than the other
ones, the pursuing marbles will keep bumping into it. If it
is faster, it will leave the chasing marbles more and more
behind. Now place the marbles at the starting point in the
correct order, from fastest to slowest, then notice their
sizes and materials. This observation should suggest you
some clue on the reasons of their different speeds. If not,
keep reading and experimenting.
ACCELERATION:
and its opposite,
DECELERATION,
is what happens
when there is a
variation of speed.
If speed increases there is acceleration, if speed decrea-
ses there is deceleration. What makes a marble accelera-
te or decelerate? The most obvious answer is: a variation
of slope. Drop a marble from the top of the tower and
observe its slow starting speed along the gentle initial slo-
pe; then the marble begins to go faster, accelerating until
it reaches the maximum speed at the bottom of the first
steep drop. Then the marble decelerates rapidly until
almost reaching a stop at the top of the following climb.
This speed changes repeat all the way down to the base
of the tower. Why do marbles accelerate downhill? Becau-
se of GRAVITY! See next paragraph.
GRAVITY: is the force that keeps us attached to the
ground, without gravity we would just float around like
astronauts in their space vehicles. Without entering
more complete physics explana-
tions (that each of you can find
in books or with the help of tea-
chers) one of the main effects of
gravity is WEIGHT. Weight is
directly related to MASS. Simply
speaking mass is how much
material is concentrated in an
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