April 27, 2011

100,000 toothpick replica of San Francisco


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Today's incredible discovery: a model of San Francisco constructed out of 100,000 toothpicks! As if that were not incredible enough, Rolling Through the Bay comes with a marble run with ping-pong balls rolling through the city. Artist Scott Weaver worked on the project on and off for 35 years! Can't beat that for patience, dedication and perseverance!

Here's a video of the artist talking about the ping-pong paths through the 9-foot-tall (2.75-m), 20-pound (9-kg) city.


Scott Weaver's Rolling through the Bay replica from Learning Studio on Vimeo.


The replica's so detailed I'm surprised he didn't need more than 100,000 toothpicks actually. The tiny sticks come from various countries including Italy, Germany, Kenya, Morrocco and Spain. This is another video of the amazing wooden sculpture from KTEHTV.




You can see photos of the toothpick model of San Francisco at Scott Weaver's Flickr stream. Rolling Through the Bay is on display until June 19, 2011 at The Tinkering Studio in Exploratorium, the museum of science, art and human perception in San Francisco.


The Tinkering Studio is an experimental laboratory within the Exploratorium where visitors are encouraged to try new things and learn about science, technology and other things by playing with and exploring exhibits and tools. If learning had been such fun when I was in school, I probably would have actually liked science!

Here's a video on The Tinkering Studio. Tinker away!


The Tinkering Studio in action from Learning Studio on Vimeo.

Have you read my post on match-stick art by Pei-San Ng?

Hope you had fun! If you did,
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by liberal sprinkles

7 comments:

deb christensen said...

hello grace, i'm so glad you found my blog~ and i'm glad i found yours, awesome stuff! i had to forward the link to this post to 2 of my girlfriends...we once spent countless humorous hours constructing a 4' eiffel tower out of matchsticks...for a dinner centerpiece. i know i'll be hearing from them soon...

Lisa Ricard Claro said...

Wow. This guy is amazing. The attention to detail and meticulous work is inspiring. Great post.

Sallie (FullTime-Life) said...

This is an interesting and different blog -- I'm glad you bloghopped over to mine!

Patty said...

Wow...this brought back a memory of when I lived in San Fran as a kid and at the Cliff House (I think it's gone now) there was a Ripley Museum where a display (I think) of a roller coaster made by convicts at Alcatraz was shown..made completely out of toothpicks. As I remember, it was pretty amazing..and huge. Obviously, that prisoner had nothing but time, and toothpicks, on/in his hands.

I had not thought about this in years until I saw your photo.

Thanks for sharing,
Patty

Julie@beingRUBY said...

HI Grace
Just popped over to say thanks for all your lovely comments my way... I so appreciate them all.. and after reading your last post [blog ethics.. copying etc].. I know you know how much work goes into creating original posts..

I totally agree with you about the crediting artist/author.. I admit when I first started blogging I used other's images.. usually credited but sometimes unknown.. but once I started using my own work.. i appreciated even more how important it is to credit the artist.. You know back in my beginnings someone stole my whole blog. whole posts were just lifted and posted elsewhere.. very disturbing... Well I did get a laugh about that boy who asked if he could steal your work.. kinda cute... fessing up like that..


Alright ... have to run.. will be back to check out more of your blog... Thanks again.. and if you are interested I'm having a giveaway of one of my prints... not sure if you noticed.... but love you to have a chance in winning..

Have a great day.. and thanks again.. xxx Julie

Julie@beingRUBY said...

forgot to mention... I'm not a country girl.. those shots are just from the suburbs in city.. near my home down by the bay... so.. ciao from this city girl too xx Julie

liberal sprinkles said...

Thanks for the comments, folks!

Debsea,
My goodness, that must have been lots of fun building that Eiffel Tower! Do you have photos? What a blogpost that would make! I hope your friends enjoy the videos, I'm glad you did!

Lisa,
I love being able to see and find all these wonderful creations on the Internet. I wish I had his patience though, 35 years is a helluva long time to work on anything!

Patty,
I've visited San Fran a coupla times but there are so many things in that little replica that I've never seen or even knew about. I love how we can learn about things in such different and original ways. It's also strange and kinda serendipitous how little (or huge) things we come across everyday remind us of other things in our lives and our past. I like to think everything's connected somehow and our paths meet (sometimes collide) once in a while. One of the best things about technology!

Julie,
Gosh, that must have been really painful to see, having your blog stolen in entirety! I cringe when I see my posts elsewhere, even when it's just a few sentences!

Grace

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