Roball Sculpture (RBS)
Interactive five-track rolling-ball sculpture with a robot arm that picks the ball and a custom random-track selector.
Five sub-tracks, ~15 m of 3 mm hand-bent brass rod, and 106 3D-printed pieces. Push the button: a robot arm picks up the ball, places it on a randomly selected track, and returns home. When the ball reaches the end you push the button again.
Roughly 150 hours of design in Google SketchUp and 250 hours of building over two years, fitted around free time.
Everything runs on a Pololu Mini Maestro 12-channel USB Servo Controller. The Maestro language has no random function, so randomness is forged from the analog sensors that "see" the ball at the pickup point: the ball's surface gives slightly different readings depending on its orientation, and that noise is used to choose the next track.
Watch
By the numbers
- tracks
- 5 sub-tracks, ~15 m of 3 mm brass rod
- parts
- 106 3D-printed pieces
- design
- ~150 h in Google SketchUp
- build
- ~250 h over two years
- controller
- Pololu Mini Maestro 12-channel USB Servo Controller
- random
- Faked from analog sensor readings of the ball at pickup
Gallery
