Roller-coaster Marble Propeller

VEX IQ General Discussion VEX IQ Robot Showcase
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Another cool project that mixes Vex robotics with the Quercetti skyrail mini rail rollercoaster kit. Influenced by Damien Kee’s paper airplane launcher, I created a marble propeller to keep marbles moving around the track. The motors are controlled with a Raspberry Pi 3, L298N DC motor controller and a Python PYQT motor controller application I crafted. The compound gearing was a lot of fun and there was added challenges getting the wheels to “float” to properly grab and throw the odd sized balls.

Video: RPi 3 VEX IQ Ball Propeller for Skyrail Rollercoaster (Track 1) - YouTube

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Very cool. I found the most difficult part was getting the spacing right. Too far apart and it would ‘grab’ the paper. Too close together and it pushed the axles out of parallel, stressing the motors too much.

Looks like you found just the right amount.