Thanks man, I've been too intermittent at uploading videos over the 10 years (coming up soon) to build a decent audience, but now a lot of Magnetic Games viewers are getting interested in me, thanks to him using some of my tutorials, so I'm finally starting to get some traction. Doh! Now I'll have to get back to work building more shapes and filming videos more frequently!
Hi, I can't recommend cheap ones, they simply aren't made well enough to form flat sheets or large geometric builds properly. The best price vs quality ones are Neoballs by Zen Magnets: you can get 25% off them by using Magnetic Games' coupon code "magneticgames" at the checkout.
I've had _some_ success with a few videos over the years, but for some reason it never translated into many subs for me. I have only uploaded occasionally, and took some long breaks, especially during the magnetic ball ban, but I started nearly 10 years ago.
I never know very accurately because I don't time myself building, But I'd estimate this shape took about 10-15 hrs of designing and building the repeated pieces. It took probably under an extra 1/2 hr to put them together once I was sure the design was working.
It's geometric and mathematical. When you know how many balls go in each piece or subunit, and how many pieces go to make the whole shape, then you just add and multiply. For this shape, a total magnet count of: 32 [mini spheres] × 180 + 60 [tubes] × 10 × 5 = 8760. In the vertical position it needed an extra 5 support leg tubes (5 × 10 × 6) = +300, giving another total of 9060 neodymium magnetic balls.
