crossing over

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crossing setup

How can we connect up the cyan and magenta paths?

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failed crossing

Hmm — looks like we’ve blocked off the magenta paths.

This is where the crossing crossing comes in:

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crossing

The crossing swaps the position of the two paths. This lets our circuits cross each other without interfering.

If you’re following along with a review kit, you might find this piece a bit tricky. It’s actually our most recently developed — previously, a crossing crossing was much larger, and also handed, which made it pretty inconvenient. We’re still tweaking this new version, so if you’re having trouble:

  • Make sure to turn the handle slowly and very steadily — no sudden jumps!
  • Make sure the drive is on a flat surface
  • Try creating the “slalom” design below for practice:
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crossing slalom

If you’re still having trouble, check out review kit troubleshooting. We’re still working on making this a bit easier to use in the full release.

fungibility

You might have noticed that when the crossing crossing receives marblemarble, it doesn’t actually swap them — they go straight through.

This is fine, because marbles are identical. Swapping two identical marbles is the same as not swapping them at all.

This property is called fungibility. Think of it like a bank account. If you deposit $1, then transfer someone $1, it’s meaningless to think about whether it was the “same” dollar — all that matters is the final amount in each account.

technical

Yes, this is the same “fungible” as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). They’re called that because each one is unique — there’s no “second copy” it can be swapped for.

When designing circuits, marbles are logically fungible, so we don’t worry about getting the “right” marble to its destination — any marble will do.

technical

Fun fact: fundamental particles (the things you’re made of) are also fungible. If you’d like to completely blow your mind, read “The Beginning of Infinity” by David Deutsch.

next

Now we have a few basic under our belt, and the word “fungible” no longer sounds like a real word, it’s time to start building some devices.

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