The Candy Catapult is an toy-game that flings candy once the player presses the three colored buttons on the catapult in a particular order that is unknown to the player. Our team programmed a Servo motor and LEDs embedded inside the Candy Catapult.

Our initial idea was to make a box that will explode candy out of its top. Then we discovered that our idea was not a toy so we modified it a little bit and made it into a puzzle. We thought that kids would have to tap the box in a specific order to make the box explode. When we started working on the prototypes, we made several different ones but we didn't ever complete one because we had to adapt to many different problems and incorporate new ideas. In the end, we came across a problem with the touch sensors that was a little too complex to fix within a week. We finally changed our idea to a catapult that will fling candy once a player figures out the mystery combination.

Our toy is a is a short marble track that resets its self. It has a spool of string that is connected to a motor that pulls a cart up a ramp. Once the cart reaches the top a marble falls through a hole and down on to the track. When the marble is released onto the track the cart continues until it reaches a button at the top, then the cart returns to the bottom to wait for the marble. Once the marble is released it travels down the track and falls into the cart were the process is repeated.

We started of with the idea of a large tower and a gondola that would bring the ball up using a pulley system, but we realized that that would have been too difficult to build in two weeks. So we came up with the idea of a large complex marble track with a small robot car that would bring the marble back around by climbing the track, using gears, but this would have also take too much time. After a lot of brainstorming sessions, we came up with the ramp and pulley design that we are currently using. By the time we came up with this final design, it was already Wednesday and we needed to build it and get the electronics working. We decided to split up, one of us building the ramp, cart and track, and the other working on the electronics and programming. We ran into various problems trying to program the robot and align the track, but we finally overcame all obstacles and got the entire structure working, mostly.

Our group made a puzzlebox. This puzzlebox would unlock when the circut would be completed. You would have to put together the box in order for the circut to be completed. When the circut was completed, a elevator would move up. When you took apart the box the elevator would lower and would lock.

For the last week and a half, Ben, Everett, and I have been making a marble run composed of different animals. We started out by coming up with different ideas for animals that could be part of the marble run. The animals we ended up making were a bird, a monkey, and an octopus. These animals each had different features. For example, the bird flaps its wings when a marble goes around its wheel.  We tried to give the marble run a elegant feel, which is why you will see many filigree patterns among the animals. To make most of the animals, we used the laser cutter for precise cuts. We made many prototypes and improvements before we came up with our final models because there were problems with connecting different pieces, keeping the marbles on track, and integrating design. If we were to continue, we would probably build more safari features and a component that would have a loop. Maybe the marbles would even run forever. Throughout this trying process, we lost a lot of our marbles (literally).We changed materials and mechanisms for some of the animals and completely redesinged others.

We started by drawing out an image of what we wanted our robot to look like; then got to work.  The next day, we started working on our prototype.  After starting off with a boring square design, we desided to re-think our design to make it more interesting and unique.  We drew up a bunch of ideas, and decided to go with a cylinder shaped design.  Then, we noticed that the wheels were a little small, and the ball barings kept them off the ground.  To fix this, we simply adjusted the size of the wheels so they would be on the ground along with the ball barings.

There were various issues we encountered along the way.The first problem was simply the circular design.  It could not be all terrain and could definenty not be 4WD. Also I thought The motors were fast and did meet my standard.

. To fix this, we cut our LED strip so that it would not take up as much power, and more power could be allocated to the motors to ensure maximum super fast speed.  Another problem encountered with the bot was that the servos were not functioning correctly.  We had to trouble shoot and figure out the various issues.  They ranged from the servos being dead, to errors in the code which needed to be debugged.  

After facing these various issues in our design, we now feel that we have a super awesome helping robot.  It is able to fit multiple different cool and useful tools on top, like a flashlight, moving bowl, and many more possibilities.  It also looks nice with the flashing LED lights and its unique circular design.  

The inspiration for our project originated from the idea of perpetual motion. We began to develop this idea of perpetual motion. The time constraint made this rather difficult to achieve, but moving forward we would like to aspire to achieving our goal of having perpetual motion. Despite this, we did achieve in creating the mechanism for picking and placing boxes. One could envision four of the robots passing boxes to eachother.