If you are considering a v2, I would love to see a version where a ball is moved by rocking the entire frame (thus removing the lever to lift the ball). It would be difficult, but the software could employ a PID controller to get smooth motion.
Add a rechargeable battery to the mix and a solar panel strong enough to charge the battery at the same time the panel powers the mechanism. Then you don't need to worry about it stopping even in temporary darkness.
@@ianbelletti6241A capacitor fits that description perfectly, and is cheaper, simpler, faster, safer and more efficient than a battery with a charge controller.
@@totally_not_a_bot you don't always need a charge controller. It depends on battery type. On top of that, some lithium batteries come with built in charge controllers. Just look at the AA rechargeable lithium batteries.
@@Engineezythe whole timing issue may just be motor speed. It would be a little more mesmerizing if you could perfect the motor speed instead of varying it. The first attempt appears that you have the rotation set too low.
Great video, and the end result is mesmerizing. I would love to see an episode 2 on this “real life satisfying GIF” idea at some point in the future where you try to get everything perfectly smooth and synchronized, with a new unique design
Awesome project, absolutely love desk display things like this. And that beat. Now needs a few other similar machines with other sounds, to make a mesmerizing orchestra
i love that you seem to have accidentally learned to do clap syncs via osmosis from watching other creators' youtube videos without realizing what their purpose was
Cool! I love those satisfying 3D animations too! This may be just part of your process that you leave out, but do you ever run a physics simulation on your machines before you build/print them? I'm a 3D animator myself and use Maxon Cinema 4D which has a physics engine that's pretty easy to use. I'm sure Blender does too. It made me think on this one that if you simulated it accurately enough, you could tweak the dimensions, slopes, etc until the ball lined up with the paddle arm at the end without the sensor and motor speed change.
I definitely need to spend more time with physics engines! Generally speaking my computer is not powerful enough to hand them haha, gonna need to fix that and improve in this area
You can use spiral shaped linear gears to vary the speed of the push arm. Then you wouldn’t have that clicking sound and it would be more fluid looking. Oval gears do the same thing but they have two speed up points instead of the one you need. You can use all kinds of shaped gears but spiral gears would be perfect for this.
A very easy change that would be cool would be to change the cam shape a bit so that the bridge arrives at the lower track at the exact time the ball does.
I’m a little late, but I just discovered this awesome video. I’m gonna say you clap because you saw other RU-vidrs doing it and they did it to make editing easier.
In 1968 I went to the World's Fair (Hemisphere '68) in San Antonio, TX. In one of the display areas, they had a machine that just fascinated me. It was a very simple machine consisting of a box mounted in a wall with a glass front. On the base of the box toward the front were two polished metal pads about 3" in diameter. Directly between the two pads was a shaft about 4" tall with a rotating hoop on top of it. Directly behind the two metal pads and about 6" above the base of the box were two holes in the back wall. About every second or two, a metal ball just big enough to fit through the hole would fall out of the hole on the right, drop down and land on the metal pad on the right. The surface of the metal pad had a compound angle that would bounce the ball and change its direction toward the spinning hoop. As the ball reached the hoop, its rotation would just align with the ball to allow it to pass through, ark down and hit the second pad where the direction was again changed and the ball bounced up and through the hole in the back on the left side of the box. Repeat indefinitely. A bunch of us probably watched this display for over an hour. Since that was 55 years ago, my recollection of the sizes might be off, but I will never forget how much fun it was watching this thing. We may have gentled "tapped" on the glass a few times to see if we could make the ball miss the hoop, but I think it was engineered with that possibility in mind because we did not break anything and it never "dropped the ball".
The gap in the upper track is not visually pronounced because that track is transparent. Making an opaque rail on top with a more obvious beak in it could heighten the visual impact.
I love the design, would like to become an engineer when I finished school, and your very inspiering. I was wondering if you could make the speed of the ball pusher variabel by using a shell gear. I think it would make the design that mutch more satisfying. Really hope you read this.
I am building an inverted pendulum at the moment and I would love to see a fully built version made by you. Also its kinda challenging I would say. Maybe a interesting challenge for you?
Bro, you are an inspiration. And seeing how you have gone through almost every comment and given a reply is so cool, I have a lot of respect for you. It would be cool If for a future project you can make a cool contraption that your subs make with you. Like you make a simple template and they design a unique mechanism off of it, build it, test it, and send it to you to add to the others.
I think it could be improved by having the scissor lift go back down slower so that it gets in position just as the ball meets the gap. That should be possible with just a different shape of cam.
It would be cool to see this modified to raise the ball up on each pass, making a figure 8 and letting the added potential energy give it the momentum to get to the opposite side
You might be able to get rid of the arduino entirely. If you use a pair of cogs where half of the cog is one radius, and the other half of the cog is a different radius, you can get 2 different speeds as the first cog rotates out of the second cog. That way you just use a single little motor to power the artwork with no extra complexity. An example of something similar is shown in "Art of rendering"s channel under Mechanical principles part 5 timestamp 0:42.
My brain every time the ball makes it safely across the gap: "OOO PIECE OF CANDY, OOO PIECE OF CANDY, OOO PIECE OF CANDY, OOO PIECE OF CANDY.." This isn't a repeating ball machine it's a frickin' dopamine dispenser, you're basically a drug dealer now.
Love the design, but your description at the beginning made me desire that tension of JUST BARELY arriving in time for the ball. This is wonderful, but I think you could make it even better by having the platform act "just in time".
I think if you just changed the shape of the cam for the scissor lift you could probably make it look like it’s moving at a constant speed. Maybe a snail shell like shape where it drops quickly but rises consistently
I'm never disappointed when I stop in here. Absolutely love what you do. Your prints always look awesome... way better than mine. Could you make a video just on your printing / post processing?
Thanks Matt! Theres not much process to my prints, the machines do a great job and the cameras dont pick up the imperfections on the white filament that well. Thanks for stopping in 🙏
Would be cool to have a small motorised conveyor in de lift that when in de down position gives the ball just enough of a boost to get up the slope and then turns of so the ball can traverse in de up position.
Here's a couple of improvement ideas. First, you could make the acceleration and deceleration of the arm smooth instead of instant. Second, by changing the shape of the cam you can directly change how the scissor mechanism moves. Why not try some new shapes and see what happens? Third, the sensor does not have to be where the arm is. Since the cam and arm are connected by a chain, you can make the cam trigger the sensor. Not a huge improvement but it would make the frame look cleaner. Finally, consider hiding the motor and electronics in the base. You would have to make the base deeper and add extra gears, but using a pancake stepper would save some space and a custom ordered circuit board with SMD components would save space.
LOVED this video. I have one wish, though; when you said you needed to reprint new parts because it didn't work, I would have liked to see a little more engineering talk about what failed and why, and how you made the right decision on the next iteration! Keep it up, my dude. I bet if you changed the shape of the cam, you could get the platform to move into place JUST in time for both the top and bottom.
I was testing a hypothesis that speeding up the motor (running at constant speed) could sync the arm better with the ball without coming down too soon. Didn’t work, but next video I’ll try to give more context! Thank you!
@@Engineezy You rock man. Maybe it's just that I'm a nerd for engineering (as a non-engineer, but a 3d modeler and game designer) that I yearn for creative professionals like yourself to share more deeply! I know it's a balance between entertainment and info to get the best engagement, but I really appreciate when creators buck that a little and don't take their knowledge for granted and share more with their community. Some content creators make a second channel with more detailed videos (or jump on Brilliant with that kind of content). You're giving a ton and the effort is noticed, though, so take in everything I say through that filter.
The scissors lift just doesn't have the feel of danger that it'll miss being in the right spot, especially since it's at rest spot is the bottom track spot.
Looks Cool. Can you use pneumatic blow gun of sorts to move the ball further into next loop. Hide it in one of the pillars. Might look a cleaner design
I really appreciated your observation about the build up and release of tension relating to the satisfaction of this art, do you think that is something you will continue to apply to your kinetic sculptures in the future?
Yes, mechanics meet the emotional quirks of us humans. However, I think the up/down movement could have been smoother and tighter to actually achieve this 'will he make it'.
ok, cool, but: can you change the timing so you move the ball from the bottom to the top track with the center section without reducing the horizontal momentum so that it still completes the circuit and you can take out the loading arm entirely. I mean that would be cool. You'll have to raise the ball in no more than the time it takes to roll across the center section. you might need a longer center section
Very cool! Couple things to really bring it home would be to adjust the timing of the bridge piece so it arrives in both places JUST as it is needed instead of being in place a moment before it is needed, and then eliminating that stutter entirely for the ball lift. Maybe make that part a continuous rubber belt that uses friction to grab the ball instead of a hard swinging arm? Really great regardless though, keep it up! Would love to see other types of these satisfying machines made in real life.
Amazing design, but if I'm honest I feel like you could have used some code to time the stepper motor to the ball rather than use a sensor, could have been way smoother
I feel like you'd have had less prototyping overall if you made a cheap, messy proof of concept beforehand (especially with the electronics, that's some serious premature optimisation of size there). Great product in the end, massive success! But I'd love to see a follow-up video where you deconstruct each stage of this process, work out the timings, and produce a looping gif that is even smoother (the speed-up of the ball scoop makes it feel a little like a video cut).
