Subject:
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Re: The Great Ball Contraption
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Mon, 10 Jan 2005 04:38:14 GMT
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Viewed:
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6370 times
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> Steve Hassenplug wrote:
>
> > > That way, you don't have to worry about too many Y's and not enough
> > > straight pieces! :)
> >
> >
> > Yes, that's something to consider. It's possible everyone would create a 90
> > degree
> > left-hand turn. Then what? :)
>
> I think you can handle this with a little care in the design of the
> rules.
Actually, it's pretty interesting, if you consider how complex making a pair of
turns really is. If you make a 90 degree right hand turn on a 32x32 baseplate, the
module must output right next to it's own input. But, bins on a left-hand turn are
on opposite corners of the plate.
Again, a big problem comes when one of the turns don't "work". So, if you have
exactly four turns (two right, two left) and one doesn't work, then none of them can
be used.
In any case, there's not much you can do on two modules that you can't do on one,
more complex module. For example, the splitter/combiner could be built as one
module.
Even things like my "train" can be laid out as "one module". By switching the
direction of the train, instead of taking balls back to the beginning, it can just
carry them and deliver them to the next module downstream.
One challenge would be to make a module that can be configured as a straight
pass-through OR a turn.
At this point, we're not interested in making the standard more complex, and
increasing the difficulty of setting it up, when it really doesn't add any
functionality to the whole contraption.
Steve
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The Great Ball Contraption
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| (...) Why not universalize the standard so that a module that can turn must be configurable to turn either to the left or the right? A few ways this could be done are movable output stages, EG a sliding or drop-in output that can be placed where (...) (19 years ago, 10-Jan-05, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: The Great Ball Contraption
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| (...) I think you can handle this with a little care in the design of the rules. If the table you are setting it up on is deep enough to permit it, you could always use four 90 degree pieces in a LEFT/RIGHT/RIGHT/LEFT sequence to keep the overall (...) (19 years ago, 9-Jan-05, to lugnet.robotics)
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