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ALittleSlow

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Everything posted by ALittleSlow

  1. ALittleSlow
    Bryan Bonahoom wrote a Vex Ball Contraption (VBC) standard. You might also check with Steve Canvin, who coordinated the VBC at Vex Worlds 2016 and Philippe Hurbain (Philo), who developed a Vex CAD package.
  2. ALittleSlow
    Balls are evil. 90 degrees. My rule of thumb in to go no less than one plate drop per six studs. One plate per four studs is probably the number you're looking for, though. Most balls have a small pit. Rest a ball on this pit on a level surface. Now tip the surface until the ball starts rolling. The angle of the surface when the ball starts rolling is your minimum.
  3. ALittleSlow
    It's simple and reversible and 100% LEGO. Requires a #1 Phillips screwdriver and a 1 x 6 brick. That's probably enough information for most people on this thread. :-) Or you could watch this amateur video.
  4. ALittleSlow
    Yeah, ball spillage must be a factor.
  5. ALittleSlow
    Look at Lasse Deleuran's pump mechanism. He has a number of innovations on this piston pump mechanism, but the use of a wheel as the "head" of the piston may be the most important. I haven't tried it myself. 1/3 bps is consistent with my experience at Brickworld shows. I timed a large Maico Arts contraption a few years ago and also got about 1/3 bps. Since a GBC will only go as fast as its slowest module, it follows that the slowest module on most GBCs averages 1/3 bps. I suppose the reason is that any module slower than 1/3 bps gets removed from the GBC.
  6. ALittleSlow
    Tire bits. Right. That's why a certain GBC Coordinator reportedly banned tire-using GBCs modules.
  7. ALittleSlow
    I wipe the worst offenders clean during the show with a damp towel. I like the washing machine idea for bulk cleaning. Similar to what Akiyuki must have concluded, in a ball cleaner module (two failed attempts so far) I found that wiping them with a dry towel is as effective as using a solvent. This begs the question: what is the dirt composed of? My hypothesis is 90% ball paint and 10% human skin cells and oils.
  8. ALittleSlow
    I found this video helpful: . I haven't tried this method myself yet.
  9. ALittleSlow
    LUGBULK works the same with GBC balls as it does other parts. More info about LUGBULK here.
  10. ALittleSlow
    Of course I'm in favor. For example, over there we just had a long forum discussion on the Akiyuki Train. Some of that content deserves not to be buried in a forum, and should be part of the Akiyuki Project. Wiki articles always have an associated discussion (or "talk") page, which functions like a forum for that article. An article for this project would be nice, too, to better organize the collaboration. If there's support for that from the major contributors, I'll go ahead and stub it next week. This is something the Wiki could satisfy nicely. It's currently a pain to upload images/videos and impossible to upload CAD files, but linking to them is trivial. Although the infrastructure isn't currently in place for a seamless repository, one thing a wiki is good at is extensibility. Come to think of it, legolijntje, if your hands are itching, maybe you'd like to at least collect and organize links to these files in a GBC Wiki article? On forums at the GBC wiki: One current problem with the GBC Wiki Forum (but not the rest of the Wiki) is that it can't email notifications. I think a fix is imminent, though. What I would love is to be able to cross-post between a specific thread on the Wiki and the GBC thread here. Incidentally, if you've never logged into the GBC Wiki, it's hosted on http://www.brickimedia.org (the Brickipedia folks) and uses the same login account.
  11. ALittleSlow
    This is discussed in the Balls article on http://www.greatballcontraption.com/. Sorry I can't access the direct link from the network I'm currently on.
  12. ALittleSlow
    Nice work, 9v system. Looking forward to more.
  13. ALittleSlow
    Perhaps a rake <http://greatballcontraption.com/wiki/Rake>, or Archimedes' screw <http://greatballcontraption.com/wiki/Archimedes_screw>, or clock lift <http://greatballcontraption.com/wiki/Clock_lift>. I don't have good pictures handy, but Bill Bourn built a pump with the piston laid horizontally as part of his balldozer module. You might find it in a Brickfair, VA youtube video.
  14. ALittleSlow
    Thanks for the Bricks and Pieces tip, dr_spock. I added it to GBC ball information at http://greatballcontraption.com/wiki/Balls Snoopy1980, if you are part of a club, I would try to order them from the 2016 LUGBULK program.
  15. ALittleSlow
    Nicely done! Any problems with the conveyor belt in-basket being shallow? I'm going to build one with the belt on the side. I don't have one like that yet. Thanks for the instructions!
  16. ALittleSlow
    Maybe. Sometimes they go back to normal on their own. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes if you change the orientation of the motor they stop making the noise. Has anyone tried to fix a motor that failed after making this noise?
  17. ALittleSlow
    You kill me. Well, at least we had the record for a WHOLE 7 DAYS. Sheesh.
  18. ALittleSlow
    Not specifically GBC, but I think there might be a GBC professor hereabouts. Lego Professor Wanted By Cambridge University To Do 'Play' Research http://www.hngn.com/articles/100924/20150615/lego-professor-wanted-by-cambridge-university-to-do-play-research.htm
  19. ALittleSlow
    Thanks, Alan. I can see an emphasis on reliability in your Brisbane video. From that I infer that the pump that uses the 2 - 3 x 3 "L" thin liftarms must also be reliable? I wondered about that when I saw it on, if I recall correctly, LegoGBCs' video stream.
  20. ALittleSlow
    Here are a couple videos of my exhibit, at the JW Marriot in Phoenix, AZ at the Manhattan Momentum conference on May 17-19, 2015:
  21. ALittleSlow
    Nice colors! Let us know when you have a video so we can see it in action. I see that your motor is accessible and prominent. I tend to build my GBC modules that way also. However another builder told me he does the opposite. He tries to hide his motors. I'm curious what others think? Should the motor be hidden, highlighted, or somewhere in between? What about other parts of the mechanism?
  22. ALittleSlow
    Just remember to allocate 142 of those days to testing.
  23. ALittleSlow
    Nice to see all the new modules. Some questions about the student contributions: What kind of instruction did the students get? How much help and guidance did they have while building? What was the reliability of their designs compared to what is normally found with new GBC builders? Where did they get the parts to build with, and the balls to test with? From my brief viewing, the inverted train pushing the track is my favorite of the new ones. A double inversion of thinking!
  24. ALittleSlow
    Very smooth, specially like the complete redesign of the Philo loader! And I love the "regulator" mechanism at the end. Can I copy that?
  25. ALittleSlow
    See you in Chicago!
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