The High Rollers' Kinetic Sculpture Webpage

Full Sculpture

Requirements

The requirements for the full sculpture included smooth system integration between the various mini sculptures, professional design, and an error free sculpture (with all marbles staying inside the sculpture). The deliverables we had to meet included a working full sculpture (which was able to be both autonomous and human run), a presentation which outlined our design process, and this website which included all other information about our sculpture (including design process, challenges, physics calculations, and all other concepts).

Integration & User Interface

Our design began with our color sorting mini sculpture (which can be viewed on the mini sculpture page). From there, we brainstormed various ideas for another sculpture until we landed on the idea of using a trampoline. Our sculpture would have a marble pass through a velocity sensor and then land on a trampoline which would move a certain distance to catch the marble. From there, the marble would bounce into a cup.

We combined these two sculptures using a marble elevator and tracks. The first sculpture would either lead to the second scultpure or the marble elevator based on the cup the marble landed in. The high cup would lead to the second sculpture, the low cup would lead back to the elevator. In both cases, we used tracks to connect the sculptures together. If the marble went to the second sculpture, after it bounced off the trampoline and landed in the cup, it would also go to the elevator using a track.

Our use of the elevator to bring the marbles back up, as well as the tracks to connect the sculptures, allows our full sculpture to be completely autonomous and never-ending.

We also included an option for human interaction in our full sculpture. In the first sculpture, the user has the option to push a button (a touch sensor with a lego piece attached to it) in order to move the first gate up and allow a marble to begin its journey through our sculpture. If the button is not pressed, the sculpture still works automatically with the gate lifting up after a predetermined time.

Full Sculpture Sketch

Note: The 1st part of sculpture and 2nd part of sculpture are side-by-side not on top of each other.

Final Results

Queue System

Our queue design allows multiple marbles to line up and travel down through the sculpture without any traffic jams or overloads. Two motor controlled gates make up the queue system. The first gate lifts up while the second one remains closed. The first gate then closes, catching the marble between the two gates and preventing other marbles from entering between them. From there the RGB sensor will read the color of the marble, and then the second gate will lift to release the marble.

Color Sorting Ramp

Based on the color detected by the RGB sensor, the ramp either moves up (yellow & green) or stays in place (blue & red & all others). This motion causes the marble to either land in the top or bottom cup based on their color. If the marble lands in the top cup, it will travel to the second sculpture. If it lands in the bottom sculpture, it will travel directly back to the elevator using tracks.

Moving Trampoline

A velocity sensor is used to detect the marble so that the trampoline moves. Because the marble always starts from the same place in our sculpture, its final velocity is always the same, therefore there is no need to constantly measure the distance the trampoline needs to move using the velocity because the distance will always be the same. Once the marble passes through the velocity sensor, the trampoline moves to catch it.

Physics Calculations

By combining the velocity measured by the sensor with the time that is taken relative to the change in height, you can predict the distance that the trampoline needs to move.

Then, in order for the encoder to understand how many units to move, the translational distance needs to be converted into degrees.

Finally, after subsituting in numbers for the variables, you can determine the amount of encoder units (alpha) to move based on the velocity.

Challenges (& Solutions)

Elevator didn't work with the small marbles we used
- We drilled a hole in the middle of the area where the marble carriers pass through (which is where the marbles were falling out of) and inserted a long, thin screw in which would allow the elevator to continue functioning but prevent the marbles from falling through.
Our first gate in our queue system wasn't able to prevent multiple marbles from slipping through
- We increased the speed the gate would close with so that it closed with a stronger force, allowing it to stop any extra marbles from slipping through.
Our ramp wouldn't return to its home position after rotating
- We changed our code so that the ramp would remain in the lower position and only raise up when a green or yellow marble arrived. By doing this, we simplified the code which fixed its functionality.
Our speed sensor wouldn't read the velocity of marbles going by (or sense them)
- We realized that we didn't give the speed sensor enough time to start up before sending marbles through. By waiting a couple extra seconds, we gave the speed sensor enough time to start up, allowing it to work properly.
The marbles wouldn't always land in their cups
- We found out that the cups were slightly shifting every time a marble landed in them, causing them to move until the marbles wouldn't land in them anymore. We fixed this problem by securing the cups with a few extra pieces so that they could no longer move.
Marbles either didn’t make it through the loop-de-loop or had too much speed coming out of it
- We made the track smoother which meant less energy was lost from bouncing, which caused the marble to gain a higher speed and make it through the loop-de-loop. We also made the track longer after the loop in order to slow down the marble so that it wouldn't fly or fall off the track.

What We Learned

During our time building our structure, we learned lots important values like patience, persistence, and ingenuity as well as coding and manufacturing skills. We were able to learn how to problem solve and to take a step back to consider other ideas. We were also able to try different designs and we realised the importance of testing as you go.

Acknowledgements

Throughout our design process, we received a great amount of help from our Professor, Teacher Fellow, Co-Teacher and Teacher Assistants. Therefore, we would like to acknowledge and thank Professor Raymond De Callafon, Teacher Fellow Lao, Co-Teacher Yeshvant, Teacher Assistants Natalie and Victor, and Design Studio Manager Chris Cassidy for all the help and guidance they gave us during our marble sculpture project.

Video Demo

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