Evolution

Our mini-sculpture was the basis of our full sculpture. Essentially, all the parts were kept, with the majority of our work being spent on building outwards and adding on to the existing structure.

In our mini-sculpture, certain parts proved to be very compatible with the full sculpture. Just like how the Archimedes Screw was the main feature of our mini-sculpture, we also decided to make it the center-piece of our full sculpture, with the only change being adding a touch sensor to make the ball drops more accurate. As for the three paths we originally had, two were changed to open the way for expansion. The middle path, instead of making a jump right back to the original starting position, went outwards, eventually leading to a steep ramp and a loop. At the bottom of the loop, we added another elevator to bring the balls back to the path with the Archimedes Screw. To make all this, we built more boxes both in the horizontal and vertical directions and also added supports to allow for more structural stability. Our group changed the third path to make it slope downwards into another elevator which was set at an angle, crossing the full body of our structure. At the top, we added a zipline built with a combination of legos and structural poles. This feature was unique in that it was a nice substitute for the constant array of marble tracks that we had used throughout the structure.

Looking back at the build process, creating the mini-sculpture was very helpful in our design process. The designs created on it and ideas experimented with it allowed us a better understanding as we worked on the full sculpture.