Integration & User Interface

In order to integrate our mini sculpture into the full sculpture, we used it as a starting point and expanded into our full sculpture by building around the mini sculpture. So, our mini sculpture is the start of our full sculpture.

Our mini sculpture design uses a speed sensor and a rotating hinge ramp to ensure that a ball always lands into the basket placed a set distance away no matter what height it was dropped at (see the mini sculptures page for more information). Since the starting position of the marble won't be controlled by a human in our final sculpture, we incorporated a randomizer that drops the ball at a random place on the starting track so that we can showcase the full capacity of our mini sculpture. For our human interface, we decided to pursue more than the mode switcher that we created for our mini sculpture and integrated a button that will set the randomizer to a chosen spot every time, interrupting the automatic nature of the randomizer.

We were also interested in incorporating a color sensor in our full sculpture, which is why we have a color-controlled motor that puts balls down different tracks depending on what color they are. 

Finally, in order to create a continued sculpture that is autonomous and requires no human interference, we used an elevator chain to return marbles from the end of the track to the top of the sculpture to start again.