Introduction: Knex Ball Machine- Jugular

About: U.B. Electrical Engineering. I enjoy building with Knex and I have been using this site for a few years now. So, subscribe if you like what I do.

Hey guys, it's knextremist and I present to you a brand new Knex ball machine! This is it, and unfortunately I don't have too many specific pictures, mainly just the video. I made this years ago (almost 3 years ago to be exact)... So I have a video of it and sadly only these few photos because I demolished it before even thinking about posting it. Now, I was younger when I made this and now regret the way I filmed it...vertically... I just recently found this in my files and decided to finally share it. The goal of this project was to create the cleanest looking ball machine I could, and I'm quite proud of the results. I mainly focused on tubed elements due to the fact that I find them to have a clean cut look. O.k. so here are some specifics.

It consisted of:

Around 15000 pieces.

9 ft. x 2 1/2 ft. x 5 1/2 ft.

4 motors.

Soundbox that plays carnival music.

2 networks.

5 lifts.

-Two separately driven lifts.

-Three lifts driven off one 12v motor.

8 paths.

-A simple chain run.

-I_A_C's Eliptica.

-A descent into a ramp which propels the ball over the Elliptica.

-A descent into a half loop then freefall.

-A flipper freefall.

-A ferris wheel.

-A network of spiral staircases.

-A descent into a double loop and then ramp.

Very compact construction.

The balls begin in the collection basket at the foot of the machine. They then circulate throughout the machine ultimately returning to the basket and dispersing once again.

Alright, so, as I said this is my FIRST ball machine. I am very proud of the way it looks with it's blue rod construction and it functions quite flawlessly. Unfortunately I used quite possibly the worst video editing software ever created. I only used it because it was free. I then tried to fix it in iMovie, which was no help whatsoever (thanks Apple). "Splice" in combination with iMovie resulted in a very tiny (and vertical..) video image. Enjoy!!! I once again apologize for the crappy, vertical video which does not do the contraption justice...

Link to video (if the embedded file doesn't work for you)

-knextremist