Structure

The first half of our machine consists of a pulley and sticky note accordion combination. The pulley is set into motion by a ball dropped in the left (when looking straight on) cup, propelling the opposite cup upwards. This cup then comes into contact with a platform. This platform has a pencil stuck through it, allowing it to rotate on an axis. It is held up by magents attached to both the side of the platform and on the vertical piece of cardboard next to it. The cup hits the left side of the platform, causing it to rotate on its axis and allowing the sticky notes to cascade downwards.

The images on the right are pulled from the final AutoCAD drawing of our RGM and denote with arrows the motion of the pulley and the platform. The video on the left was one of our first successes with this sequence.

The second mechanical half of our machine is made up of a book, lever, ramp, second pulley and curtain. A servo motor first turns to the left, knocking the book (actually pieces of cardboard made to look like a book) onto a ramp. After two seconds, the servo motor turns to the right, hitting a lever which had been preventing a ball from rolling down a ramp. Once this lever has been lifted, the ball rolls down the ramp, down the book, through a funnel, down another ramp and into our machine's second pulley. When the ball lands in the pulley's cup, which is also attached to a pieces of fabric, the downward motion of the pulley reveals the whiteboard behind the fabric.

 The images on the left are pulled from our final AutoCAD drawing and highlight the book-ball mechanism as well as the second pulley. The video on the right is from after we replaced the book-ball mechanism and were re-testing to ensure consistency.