Final Prototyping:

Since my poetry theme revolves around time and cycles, I want to create a ball drop system. For the past two weeks, I’ve been prototyping an elevator that needs to transport a ball from the lowest point to the highest.

I have found several mechanical methods that could work. One is based on Archimedes’ principle, or using a circular turntable OR a belt conveyor. These methods are quite straightforward. I’ve been exploring other possibilities and then I came across this toy, which looks really dynamic! So, I’m inclined to try this approach, allowing the ball to ascend level by level!

Archimedes Principle                Rotating circle                                          Belt

 

Theoretically, it’s feasible, but because the only active component has multiple steps, achieving the back-and-forth movement of the ball between the active and stationary steps would require extensive testing and calibration/adjustment. I don’t think this is an effective approach. Firstly, using a cam to control all the movements is very challenging and risky. Secondly, the more steps there are, the larger the base needs to be, and I don’t want it to become a mountain. Therefore, I have decided to abandon this approach.

However, I still learned something very important from this, such as how to design steps that allow the ball to roll to its intended destination by gravity.

Then I found this video where each cam drives a step, so the motion path can be very precise. Trying to work with this logic will definitely work, but it also has the issue of increasing floor space as more steps are added. So, how to effectively use vertical space is a problem.

This reminded me of some department stores, which, to increase customer flow and guide customer to stores they had no intention of visiting, thereby stimulating potential spending, have stairs located on both sides. At each floor, customers may need to walk from left to right to catch the elevator on the other side to the next floor.

So, I came up with this idea: put elevators in the front and back, and give a slight slope to the side passageways. When the ball is transported to a floor, it slides down to the entrance of the next (back) elevator.

Demo:

 

Paper Automaton

 

The mouth is split, cute!