ATTRACTIONS & IMMERSIVE · 2026

Marble Speedway

A 350 ft marble race that runs all day, every day, as a permanent attraction at The Strong National Museum of Play.

CLIENT

The Strong National Museum of Play

LOCATION

Rochester, New York

OPENED

February 2026

DELIVERED BY

Story Factory Studios

MY ROLE

Principal-in-Charge & Technical Designer

STAGES

Concept Design to Handover (RIBA 2-6)

The story

The Strong holds the world's largest collection of historical material about play. The museum came to us with a simple idea: a giant marble race. We treated it as a show design problem before an engineering one. The first questions were not how to move a ball 350 ft, but what it should feel like to race, who should be able to see it, and what a visitor should understand within ten seconds of arriving.

We fixed the race as the organising event, made the kiosk the point of control, and used a large display with track-level video so spectators can follow a race they are not in. Only then did we resolve the track geometry, the lifts, and the structure.

What I did

Held overall accountability for the appointment, including contract, programme, and budget.
Led the technical design of the track structure, lift integration, guarding, and maintenance access.
Managed the specialist fabrication partners for track, structure, casework, and metalwork, alongside Fire Burns Up, our creative technology and interactive systems partner.

Key figures

About 350 ft of racing track · 24 in-track interactive elements · six arcade-style visitor control kiosks · four ball lifts, including a bespoke helical lift · a 26 ft by 4 ft display with live track-level video · about 15 months from appointment to opening.