Machine Control: THE MARBLE SORTER OF DOOM

This was my copy of the Decision Matrix that we made. We decided on Sketch 2 and made that design our experimental product. The sketches are below.
March 25th: This sketch was made by Henry. It features a gate system that lets only one marble through the ramp at a time. A magnet will trap the metal marble before it roll through the rest of the system and it gets knocked off into a bin by a pneumatic pump. A light detector differentiates from the different colored marbles and the wooden marble that doesn't let any light in. Once the signal is read, a gear with bins on it turns to the appropriate bin and the marble is pushed in by a pneumatic pump.

March 25: This sketch was made by David. It once again features a double pneumatic gate that lets only one marble in at a time. It then leads to a gate that stops all colored marbles due to their height. Metal ones and wooden ones go through the gate without stopping. Metal marbles get stuck on a magnet and are pushed off into a bin. Wooden marbles just roll through the system and fall into a bin. The stuck colored marbles are then pushed onto another ramp with a gate and a light sensor. Depending on what color the light sensor reads, an angled pneumatic gate shuts a path and the marble rolls along the gate into a bin.

March 25th: I made this sketch. It has a gate that stops all colored marbles because of their height. A light sensor reads the marble and it causes a gear with the appropriate bin to spin to the marble. A pneumatic pump pushes the marble out. Metal and wooden marbles continue rolling through the gate. A magnet stops the metal marble and a pneumatic pump pushes the marble out. Wooden marbles roll completely through the system.

March 25th: I made this sketch as well. This system has a double gated system that only allows one marble at a time. After that a magnet catches all the metal marbles and a pump pushes it into a bin. The wooden and colored marbles pass that and stop on a light sensor. The reading from the light sensor will make a gear with bins on it line up the correct bin and a pump will push the marble into the bin.

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These are all pictures to the final solution's programming. I spent most of my time in the building aspect to our final solution, so my explanation will be very watered down. We made use of three subprograms that ran in a loop. Sub program #1 was for the gate system that allowed only one marble in at a time. Sub program 2 operated the marble sorter for the metal and wooden marbles. Sub program 3 controlled the light sensor and the sorter for the colored marbles.

Recollection: I believe that we solved the problem pretty well. For the most part, their are no malfunctions in the system and if something unexpected happens, the system has enough time to recognize the error. However, our system is a bit on the slow side, but it is very efficient. If we could figure out a way to speed the process without making it less efficient then that would be a good goal for next time. Taking all of this in, I believe that we did meet most, if not all of the design requirements.

For the most part, the problems that I encountered in working on a design team were more of a social problem. For example, we thought of two different ways to accomplish something and we couldn't really agree on what to do. However, eventually we finally came to an agreement and integrated our compromise into the system.

The main purpose for this project was to engineer a solution to a repetitive task that could be solved with machines. By doing so, we can cut unnecessary jobs from certain areas to increase profit margins. All in all, it also the tasks could be done faster and with more precision if engineered correctly.

A helping hand: Out of all the people that I would like to recognize, it would most likely be Thomas Luppi. He really assisted with some ideas of his own during the planning stage that really influenced our final design.

Some ideas for Achievements

"Pumped" : Use at least 1 pneumatic pump in your system
"Gears of Sort" : Use at least one gear in your system
"Air Supply": Use only 1 pneumatic pump
"Magnetized" : Use at least 1 magnet in your system
"Blazing Fast" : Your system completes its task in under a minute.

Since Pneumatics were in short supply, I thought that using an achievement that rewards you for using less will encourage others to use less of the rare and holy pneumatic parts.