Our new design of our project has us putting all of the marbles in the separate carts before we take them to their respective bins. With this design we will be able to move the marbles faster than we would have been able to before due to the fact that we are now able to move multiple marbles at the same time.

We believe that we will be able to transport the fifteen marbles in two minutes because we are able to move 8 marbles in one minute. It seems that 15 marbles in two minutes is not far from reality, and to make it even better we have not even finished the coding of our project so that is not even at maximum capacity. Once we actually get to maximum capacity, we should be able to move 10+ marbles in one minute. This will then make the objective of 15 marbles in two minutes very, very doable.

Marble Sorter Update

So our design has changed a little bit and we have changed it to include three carts onto our moving component. This is to allow the fact that we can sort all of the marbles into separate carts at the start, and then we can sort them into their respective bins. This will allow us to move our marbles much faster than before and it will also be a much more reliable set up than we had before.

The only drawback to this change in design is that we will be forced to program more than we had to before. However, the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

In progress Marble Sorter

Our basic design for our sorting machine works as follows:

1: Our marbles start off on a ramp leading down into the cart; this ramp has a gate at the start of it to allow marbles to pass through freely when they can.


2: As the marble waits at the gate to be processed, it is put through a test to determine what sorting area it should go through


3: The first test it goes through is to determine the size of the marble. After the size is determined it goes through the appropriate sorting channel, the two channels are big marbles and small marbles.


4: If the marble is small then it drops down into a separate channel, goes down a small ramp, and ends up in the appropriate sorting bin. At that point the sorting of small marbles would be tested to see whether or not they are magnetic.


5: If the small marble is magnetic then it will be picked up and put in a separate bin, yet if it is not then it will be pushed into the bin, thus finishing both the wood and the chromium marbles and their sorting.


6: If the marble is a large marble then it is dropped down into the cart where it then will go through another test, this test involves passing light through the marble and by doing that we can determine what kind of material the marble is made from due to the reflectivity.


7: After that test is completed the cart goes to the appropriate bin based on its results from the test, and pushes the marble into the bin by means of a piston pushing the marble off the cart.



We believe we will be able to sort our fifteen marbles in two minutes due to the fact that we have broken down each marble type into their simplest form.



Here is our prototype so far, sorry for the clutter.