Challenge #9: Pick and Place

[wadlo]

This is my second submission for challenge #9. I am calling it "Block Crane" because it mimics the way a crane with a magnet picks up objects in a junkyard. This machine is completely automated without the use of sensors -- all of the movements are choreographed with a clock. I was able to run the sequence as fast as possible while still being successful 95+% of the time, but I may tweak some settings later this month and make it run 2 or 3 times as fast.

[dbrckovi]

Hi!

I like this challenge very much. I was running out of ideas for the obstacle challenges, so this is a nice refreshment.
This is my first entry. It should work but there are 3 critical moments when boxes can make unexpected jumps so I made a video in case it won't work for you.

[Brother_enk]

Hi there,

Here is my machine, a hover-stacker. Took me AGES to fine tune it
It should work everytime, but here's a video just in case.

Catcha,
Brother_enk.

[wadlo]

"Street Sweeper" is my 3rd submission for this challenge. In contrast to my "Block Crane," this machine relies completely on sensors. If anyone is interested in how to make an unbreakable state machine just let me know and I can write a tutorial.



I tip my hat to dbrckovi and Brother_enk. Nice work

[the key]

So many ideas and solutions...

Here is my first working machine for this challange:

train.mchn

(21.96 KiB) Downloaded 20 times

Somehow I see some similarities to my block bridge in #4.
(guidance, force beams, sliding table)

It may need a lot of time to finish all its tasks,
so I added some unnesseary decoration.

I also recommend to have a tea or coffe while letting the machine work.
Or call your girlfriend or whatever....

[wadlo]

Bell Twins in my 4th submission for this challenge. The initial idea was to create four bell-shaped hovercraft machines that would each move one block into position while dodging each other. I moved the hovercraft aspect to something else I am working on and changed the number of machines from four to two -- this makes each machine's job is more interesting.



the key: That's a really funny design. I experimented with tracks during challenge 8 but ran into issues having to do with mass. I would imagine you could speed this up by making two identical machines that are never on the shared track at the same time. This would cause them to juggle back and forth similar to the way that my Bell Twins juggle.

[Brother_enk]

G'day,

Here is my 2nd submission for this challenge, It was supposed to be finished earlier but Uni had other plans.
It's a pretty simple 'Collector' that drops the cubes into a tray and stacks them.
this video shows the machine conviniently exploding after stacking the cubes. (it's not very reliable or smooth )

Those tracks are a great idea, The Key. seems to enuse that your 'train' runs nice and consistently.
Waldo, you've got some great machines there; I don't know how you have so many different ideas!

Catcha,
Brother_enk.

[ARKtest]

Wow guys, y'all have really upped the creativity. Now I really feel out of the loop and behind, but keep it up guys!

[the key]

Two mirrowed twins... one destiny... four blocks... and a lightisch red goal.

rutsche.mchn

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And its not a rainbow theme... I just didn´t have any better pattern than grey or six different colours.

speed this up by

hmm... that would be a maior change. But I think I consider that idea.

tracks are a great idea

upped the creativity

Life is somehow also about raising the bar, I this case I used the bar to climb a bit higher because the main concept already existed.
The train is at least a mixture of tiny ideas of my own, inspiration from games and these machines:
http://www.hhla.de/So-laufen-Container-ueber-den.1220.0.html?&no_cache=1

Altogether this forum makes me stare, wonder, think, laugh and despair when being unable to do something.
And it teaches me that there so much more solutions for one problem than I could ever imagine.

Always fun to see how other solve problems.

[wadlo]

I started working on a hovercraft block mover about 2 weeks ago and then kept working on anything else to get my mind off of how complicated it is. Today I woke up, decided I would wrap it up before the deadline, and after 3 hours of trying to get the impossible to happen I am going to admit defeat.

Below is a video of the machine in action. As you can see, it doesn't stack accurately as it should. This video happens to shows it stacking better than usual. After a lot of trying to figure out why, it seems that the balance system is conflicting with the positioning system. I don't have time to redo hovercraft balancing and then redoing the positioning based on the changes, so I am just going to post the video as a "look what I did that didn't quite work."



I'm including the unfinished machine so that it is online.