For the last week and a half, Ben, Everett, and I have been making a marble run composed of different animals. We started out by coming up with different ideas for animals that could be part of the marble run. The animals we ended up making were a bird, a monkey, and an octopus. These animals each had different features. For example, the bird flaps its wings when a marble goes around its wheel.  We tried to give the marble run a elegant feel, which is why you will see many filigree patterns among the animals. To make most of the animals, we used the laser cutter for precise cuts. We made many prototypes and improvements before we came up with our final models because there were problems with connecting different pieces, keeping the marbles on track, and integrating design. If we were to continue, we would probably build more safari features and a component that would have a loop. Maybe the marbles would even run forever. Throughout this trying process, we lost a lot of our marbles (literally).We changed materials and mechanisms for some of the animals and completely redesinged others.