Deadheads

Our marble track represents the relationship cycle of technology and man. Man needs to turn the crank to propel the ball, or technology, up the screw. This shows that technology cannot start without a human push. After the person cranks the balls all the way to the top, they fall along the tracks by themselves and the user can stop interacting. So technology is able to run its course and progress without any help from man for a certain time period. Eventually the balls end up back at the base of the screw to be pushed up again from a human interaction. Technology can only go so far before man needs to help it out or update it again.

A hand crank turns a large gear which is mated to a smaller gear that rotates an Archimedes screw. Four balls are located on a track at the base of the Archimedes screw which are carried up when the crank is turned. The balls fall through a hole at the top onto a switchback system that separates each ball onto a different track. Three of them have the ball fall onto plastic tubing track and then fall into a funnel. The fourth one is a coiled copper wire that allows the ball to twist downward onto plastic tubing track. These four tracks then gather back together on a PVC pipe track, on which are two copper wires that are parallel to each other. The PVC pipe track leads the balls to the bottom of a magnetic lift. The magnetic lift consists of a sheet of flash metal bolted to a tall wooden frame. Behind the flash metal is a plastic chain with small magnets taped on which is connected to a small motor. When the ball rolls over the copper wires, it completes the circuit, sending a voltage to the microcontroller, which then runs the motor for a fixed amount of time. This lifts the balls up to the top of the flash metal. At the top of the lift, the balls fall into a plastic tubing track that winds all the way back down to the bottom of the Archimedes screw.