Find your OctoFlow
Updated: 5 days ago
This design started with a problem everyone on the team knew well: long hours at desks, struggling to find time for breaks, and when we do stop, most of us grab our phones. We wanted a break that gives your brain something to do.
Our first session, at the end of September, was mostly about learning each other's strengths and making a plan. Then we researched marble mazes and puzzle boxes. A week later we'd settled on a marble maze and were debating themes: the ocean, the solar system, an amusement park.
By late October we'd picked the ocean. Most of the mazes we looked at had no theme at all, and a story makes people want to pick something up, younger kids especially. So the maze became a pearl, sealed inside a clear sphere, with an octopus wrapped around it standing guard. The tracks inside are the coral: funnels, loops, rails, turns and jumps you tilt the marble through.
Two existing products shaped the design. A big plastic marble run gave us the idea of using loops and funnels to add difficulty. A clear plastic sphere showed us we could let people watch the marble's whole path, which turned out to be half the fun.
In early November we built low-fidelity prototypes and tested materials before committing to anything. We landed on 3D printing in two plastics: PLA where we needed strength, and ABS where we needed a little flex. Every track was designed in CAD first.
In mid-December we printed every part and put it together. The maze is built in modules, rings of track that stack inside the sphere. We used superglue and clamps to keep everything steady, and the alignment had to be close to perfect, or the marble couldn't cross from one module to the next.
In January we ran test after test, and the marble kept stopping. Friction and tiny misalignments between sections slowed it down or jammed it completely. We changed pathway angles, loop sizes and jumps, and finally sanded down the funnel by hand until the marble could make it all the way through.
Testing changed the octopus too. Our first version had stiff, stationary tentacles. We switched to movable ones, which looked more realistic and gave people something to fidget with. And the first maze was too easy, so we kept making the inside harder until it was a real challenge.
Each OctoFlow costs $1.95 to make: 15 cents of PLA, 20 cents of ABS, $1.50 for the clear sphere and 10 cents for the glass marble.
In March 2026 we took OctoFlow to the TSA state conference.
