The Verse Engine
Every marble in Sister Maddox’s machine has part of a verse painted on it. Fit gears onto the panel so the marbles drop in the right order and spell the verse.
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Verse 1
Parts on the bench
left hopper
right hopper
How to play
- Press Run and the first marble drops from its hopper.
- It falls through the pegboard and lands on the left or right lever.
- Whichever lever it hits opens that hopper, and the next marble drops from there.
- The row of marbles above the verse shows the order the hoppers have to go in.
- Pick a part from the bench and tap a peg to set it down. Tap it again to turn it the other way.
- When every word lands in order, Apollo checks the verse.
Stuck? Step lets one marble go at a time, so you can see where it goes wrong. Once you can spell a verse, switch on memory mode and try it without peeking.
On a keyboard: arrow keys move around the pegs, Enter places or turns a part, Delete takes it off, and the number keys pick a part.
The parts
- Ramp
- A small gear with a fixed chute. It rolls every marble one peg over, the way its arrow points.
- Flipper
- A lever on a small gear. It sends a marble the way its arrow points, then tips over, so the next marble goes the other way.
- Gear flipper
- A flipper on a big gear. When gear flippers touch, or are joined by gears, their teeth lock and they all tip together.
- Gear
- Passes a turn from one gear flipper to another. Marbles fall straight past it.
A puzzle idea from B. R. Bryan. The 7 verses are her Verses to Remember from The Great Engine.
Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
