Great Ball Contraption

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The Great Ball Contraption is modular circuit build out of Lego pieces, passing balls like a bucket brigade. It is often described as giving the impression of a Rube Goldberg machine. [1]

Lego Construction toy

Lego is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of colourful interlocking plastic bricks accompanying an array of gears, figurines called minifigures, and various other parts. Lego pieces can be assembled and connected in many ways to construct objects, including vehicles, buildings, and working robots. Anything constructed can be taken apart again, and the pieces reused to make new things.

Bucket brigade method for transporting items

A bucket brigade or human chain is a method for transporting items where items are passed from one person to the next.

Rube Goldberg machine deliberately complex contraption in which a series of devices that perform simple tasks are linked together to produce a domino effect in which activating one device triggers the next device in the sequence.

A Rube Goldberg machine is a machine intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and overcomplicated fashion. Often, these machines consist of a series of simple devices that are linked together to produce a domino effect, in which each device triggers the next one, and the original goal is achieved only after many steps.

Contents

Standardization

A sketch of the standard. GBC Standard.svg
A sketch of the standard.

GBC modules are standardized to make contraptions work seamlessly together without pre-planning or modification. [2]

The standard as defined by Steve Hassenplug [3] :

  1. Each module should have an "in" basket, and will move balls to the next module's "in" basket, which must be directly in line.
  2. The IN basket should be 10 studs by 10 studs (outside dimension) with an 8x8 opening, and should be 10 bricks (beams) tall.
  3. The front of the basket should be 32 studs from the back of the module. This will allow all modules to be lined up against a wall. The back of the module CAN be closer to the basket, but not farther.
  4. The In basket should be located on the left side of the module, and output should go to the right.
  5. There are no size limits, beyond those listed
  6. Each module should be able to accept balls at an average rate of 1 ball per second. Balls can be passed continueously, or in a batch. A batch should not exceed 30 balls.

References

  1. ↑ "The Great Ball Contraption Wiki". greatballcontraption.com. Retrieved 2018-05-01.
  2. ↑ "Standard - The Great Ball Contraption Wiki". greatballcontraption.com. Retrieved 2018-05-01.
  3. ↑ "The Great Ball Contraption". www.teamhassenplug.org. Retrieved 2018-05-01.
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