Show HN: Roons – Mechanical Computer Kit

uncial | 178 points

This is really really cool! The physicality of it is special and can be a huge help with some people to gain an understanding of whats actually happening on the micro scale. Reminds me very much of "Spintronics", a game that holds a special place in my heart as I could teach a traditionally conceptual topic to my kids.

Are the designs you've come up with 3D printed? I feel like there's a huge possibility of community advancement into this ecosystem (fully appreciating you should make a return on all of your time and creativity).

Thanks again for sharing something so cool.

cuken | 20 hours ago

> ...the gears have a layer of phase baffles (I don’t know the technical term). These physically block the gears from connecting until they’re perfectly synced up...

perhaps the correct term is "key" [0]? only thing i could find to contribute to this masterful project, by pointing out unimportant details like this.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_(engineering)

uticus | 21 hours ago

btw love the about page

> Do you want to work with a company servicing 6,000 Clients across 8 Different Countries, with turnover of more than 125 Million USD?...Are you looking for a Proven Track Record delivered by an Award-Winning Multinational Conglomerate with over Two Hundred Years of Business Experience?...If not, whomtech has you covered.

uticus | 21 hours ago

As a CS prof, I'd love to have this in my office for students to play with. Looks awesome!

jackpirate | 11 hours ago

If the "Turing Tumble" was Duplos, this is moving up to Legos!

https://store.upperstory.com/products/turing-tumble

smoyer | 14 hours ago

This looks like you make a shapez-like game and then make it runs in real world, too impressive for my brain to understand how it works!

novoreorx | 11 hours ago

that is awesome, how do you see this evolving for practical use cases? Is it just for education and experimentation, or could something like this scale for more complex tasks?

sneha_tamal | 19 hours ago

This is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time. I've always wanted to see this visualized and the marbles make it so tactile and real.

duncancarroll | 17 hours ago

This is cool! The simulator was useful for understanding what was going on, I hadn't realised until I watched a few that the roons can push marbles out in between squares.

proaralyst | a day ago

How loud is it? Would it disrupt the whole office if I had it on my desk and occasionally played with it?

Very cool, I'll check back for the Kickstarter!

BlimpSpike | 20 hours ago

This is really neat.

Is there any use for something like a hopper that dispenses new marbles continuously?

Johnbot | 21 hours ago

All with a reference to the Rockwell Turbo Encabulator! Awesome.

shafoshaf | 21 hours ago
[deleted]
| 21 hours ago

Good God! This is marvelous!

sriram_malhar | 21 hours ago

you implied that there were scaling problems. it would be really fun and indstructive if one could use enough nodes to bulid a simple store and von neuman machine with instruction decode. but this seems like it would take a 10x10 array of your panels. do you think you can push this architecture that far?

convolvatron | 21 hours ago