It turns out that everyone does still enjoy marble runs
We kicked off the academic year of 2026 with a brand new learning game, Marble Runs and Software Testing. Thank you everyone for joining and acting as the guinea pigs/proefkonijnen if you have any feedback let us know so that it can be improved for others to enjoy in the future!
How did it work?
Our coders were split into 3 groups and each group recieved a selection of marble run pieces and 10 minutes to build a marble run.
Once the 10 minutes were up the first round was over and each group was given 3 marbles and had to run them them consecutively and hope there were no issues. Surprisingly there were some that made it through unscathed, but it was far from optimal. Now everyone had some understanding of how the pieces worked and we could up the ante.
For the second round there were specific demands for each team. This meant some parts had to be swapped between them. Each team was also allowed to keep a single marble to test with, but the “live” test would again be with 3 marbles one after the other. This time all teams had 2/3 marbles make it through. The testing had improved the outcome (the lesson intended to be taught).
After stopping to reflect on how this related to unit testing in software development and thinking about how we should ideally include these in our development process we moved to the final round. Each team had a specific request of a number of parts they needed to include, 5 gutters, 4 spinners, 2 catapults. The teams would work separately, but they would need to connect all the runs together into one massive run. Team one would start at 30+ pieces high and deposit on the 20th level, team 2 would recieve on the 20th level and deposit on the 10th level and team 3 would recieve on the 10th and have the exit. All teams had 3 marbles to test, but could not communicate or observe the runs of the other teams.
After a few collapses of team 1 and a complete refactor for team 2 we were there!
How did it end?
The teams were allowed to test with a single marble and after the test each team could have move two pieces. The test went perfectly and it was time for the the real deal.
*drum roll*
2 out of the 3 made it!! A great result considering the challenge that was set out. By way of celebration the group asked to do a stress test with 6 marbles at once. Due to the volume of marbles this did not go as smoothly, but 1/6 is not so bad.
By this time next year they’ll have the perfect marble run ready to go ;)
TL;DR
The marble runs were set up without marbles, then with a singular to test, then three to test with and had to be combined into a super marble run. There was increasing success as the rounds went on and we had a lot of fun and pizza!
The whole super run (in all its glory)
