This nine foot tall wooden sculpture of San Francisco was made with glue and 105,387 and a half toothpicks. It was built by Scott Weaver who, stuck at home at the age of 14 with spinal meningitis, started working in earnest on the project and continued on it for 37 years. It has 10 different starting points and 5 different weaving track ‘tours’ throughout for ping pong balls to roll through, hence its name: Rolling Through the Bay.
Weaver shares the sculpture’s details in this episode of Coolest Thing. You can see Rolling through the Bay in person at its home inside San Francisco’s Exploratorium at Pier 15.
Early structures were abstract and about 2–4 feet tall. Then he built one sculpture that had a ping-pong ball roll through it. In 1974, Scott started a new sculpture and added the Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street, which also had a ping-pong ball roll through it. This is what started what is now Rolling Through the Bay. Over the years Scott has worked on Rolling Through the Bay, on-and-off, sometimes not working on it for years at a time, to do other projects and get married to his beautiful wife, Rochelle, and have a wonderful son, Tyler. Scott loves working with toothpicks and hopes to do so for years to come.
“I’ve used Diamonds, Forsters, Ideals, Penleys…Richwoods were the best, back in the nineties. Now I use Diamonds because they're the most accessible for strength, they’re birch still, I think.”
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