Turing Tumble Marble-Powered Computer

Turing Tumble is a working computer made of plastic parts and marbles, with no batteries anywhere. You snap ramps, bits, crossovers, gears and interceptors onto an upright board, release a marble, and the parts flip as it falls, so the board can count, add, subtract, multiply, divide and run logic.

The standard kit has the board and stand, 30 ramps, 10 bits, 8 gear bits, 6 crossovers, 4 gears, 3 interceptors, a presser, 30 counterweights and 40 red and blue marbles. The puzzles come as a comic book with 60 challenges that build from simple patterns toward machines that count and do logic.

It suits the software engineer who has always worked several layers above the hardware and wants to see the bottom layer move, and the parent who’d like to show a kid what a computer does inside. Upper Story rates it for ages 8 to adult, so it works as a shared puzzle at the kitchen table.

The catch: it’s rated for ages 8 and up, so a working programmer will breeze through the opening puzzles before it gets interesting. With dozens of small parts and 40 marbles, it also needs table space and a box to live in between sessions.