When a customer makes a purchase order, a script automatically triggers a tennis ball to be released down a track which ends with the ball ringing a gong.
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Overview
The track starts with a servo motor which automatically releases a tennis ball when signalled by the computer.
The track runs along the divider behind four desks, with a bounce / jump at the middle.
The coat-hanger-wire track is bound to lasercut brackets with wire.
The track brackets are supported via wooden slats by brackets that slide onto the bars of the office dividers.
Construction
The office furniture (from the Herman Miller Resolve System) has bars along the tops of the separators.
The bar supports can be lifted out of slots on the posts.
The initial paper mock of the brackets to fit on the top rail. This was scanned, then traced in Adobe Illustrator, cut and test-fit.
After a revision to the rail bracket's fit, a full set of rail and track brackets were cut.
Initial installation of the rail brackets.
Thanks to Kate Peterson for help installing the track and inventing its path.
Parts
- 22" Wind Gong from GongsUnlimited.com
- tennis balls
- micro servo from adafruit
- Teensey 2.0, for servo motor control
- #6-32 socket-cap machine screws, wing nuts, and nylock nuts from ServoCity.com (about 50 screws, ½" and 3⁄8")
- brackets, laser-cut at danger!awesome
- Illustrator file with the two shapes
- EPS layout of the full sheet for cutting In retrospect, many of the attachment holes were superfluous, and probably took significant extra laser time (and therefore cost).
- wire from about 20 coat hangers
- 28 guage brass wire
- wooden furring strips from the local hardware store (about 10, 3'x1"x1⁄8")
Software
- a server reports new purchase orders on a machine-readable status page
- on a desktop machine, a Python script
- fetches and parses the status page
- determines if a new order has been submitted
- if so, writes a magic character over serial (simply by shelling out
echo 'P' > /dev/ttyACM0)
- the Tennsey runs an Arduino sketch, based roughly on the servo sweep example sketch, which
- listens for the magic character on serial (emulated on USB)
- when it sees the character, moves the servo back and forth to release a tennis ball