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Subject: 
Re: TGBC - The Weakest Link?
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Sun, 9 Jan 2005 23:34:04 GMT
Viewed: 
5744 times
  
In lugnet.robotics, Mark Bellis wrote:
A module with 2 input faces would probably be a hopper with 2 chutes entering
it.  The greatest problem I've had with ball contraptions is balls clogging in
the hopper - sometimes you need an agitator like they use in factories.

Any operation involving a long sequence of events as in The Great Ball
Contraption (TGBC) is likely to be fouled up by failure of one of the events in
the chain - the so called weakest link.

Is there allowance for the fact that one of the modules may act up and not
deliver the requisite balls for the next module to act on?

Each module must at minimum be able to sense that there are indeed balls in the
input bin before acting on them and that there are balls in the output bin for
the next module to do its stuff.

A fail-safe mechanism would be such that the offending module can be by-passed
so that the sequence can still go on. I envisage Steve's train could be just the
thing to do the job, running hither and thither to make sure the whole
contraption is working.

But to complicate matters, the weakest link may not be just one module.
Different modules could act up at various times.

CS



Message has 2 Replies:
  Re: TGBC - The Weakest Link?
 
(...) First, test the modules as they are added to the system to make sure they meet the minimum requirement. Second, watch the whole thing like a hawk, being ready to shut it down to fix such problems. Third, there will have to be some (...) (20 years ago, 10-Jan-05, to lugnet.robotics)
  Re: TGBC - The Weakest Link?
 
(...) Not really. :) However, we're not expecting the GBC to run 100% of the time. It's not like letting a train run in a circle for eight hours. There are all kinds of things going on at the same time. In our testing, we seemed to run for about 20 (...) (20 years ago, 10-Jan-05, to lugnet.robotics)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: The Great Ball Contraption
 
(...) I made a device that sends balls alternately down two chutes. Balls enter through a 2x2 hole in the top, onto the centre of a 7L studless beam, set up as a see-saw. Which ever way a ball goes, it drops onto another, longer, see-saw that tilts (...) (20 years ago, 9-Jan-05, to lugnet.robotics)

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