This would make a nice display piece for open house and similar events. Shouldn’t be too difficult for us to put one together.
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I actually met this guy at the Austin Mini Makerfaire, I remember he had juggling balls with motion sensors so he could gather that data. I remember his skittles sorting machine. Even though it’s on a tilted board, that’s still very impressive.
I think this is a great example of research, problem solving, and manufacturing, but other than being an interesting toy, what purpose would it serve to copy someone else’s work? I would think this should inspire us* to come up with our own projects ideas that need creative solutions.
*And by “us” I mean you guys, I’ll be in the back playing with mud. Unless you want to come up with a robot that can make pottery, and then I’m down for that. **
**And doing my “if you can imagine it it, it probably exists research” I found these: http://www.wired.com/2014/08/a-huge-clay-filled-robot-that-replaces-the-potters-wheel/
https://cfileonline.org/technology-video-harvards-digital-robot-assisted-ceramics-production/
Is it me or is Harvard lowering their standards to where students lose debates to prison inmates and film videos with no sound…???
Virtually everything mankind produces is a ‘copy’. Working from a picture or video and producing a similar object isn’t really copying more then the idea. Most of the work is in implementation.
Further, the appeal of a project like this is the same as any of the other automatons people have been creating for hundreds of years. Self moving mechanical objects have a great deal of appeal. The kind of appeal we would want to put on display at open houses and other similar events where we advertise ourselves.
All that said, nothing about the above implies folks shouldn’t try to ‘come up with their own projects.’
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I understand the concept of truly original ideas being rare, I practice a craft that is literally as old as civilization. 
If we want to use this as inspiration to do a project, come up with our own solutions, give this guy a run for his money and perhaps improve his design; great. I have no problem with that, I think that’s a fantastic thing for us to be doing. I believe that behind the physical making part of what we do, what we really teach and foster is problem solving. I know what pottery teaches me is patience, persistance, and the ability to deal with failure, because I fail often! lol
I guess the part that I have an objection to would be displaying something like this as a showpiece of what we can do. We can take this persons designs and make this juggling robot, but what we would be displaying would be his innovation and creativity. It would be an example of manufacturing, not innovation. To go back to pottery as an example, there are only so many basic techniques for making pots, but I can pull pieces off the shelves and show you how our members have taken those basic techniques and make something original out of them, and something that I can point to and see the marks of which potter made which piece.
So you do not display any of your pottery? Whose talent produced your pottery? Yours or the person in antiquity who invented the clay pot?
BTW, I don’t even know if he published a ‘design’. I was thinking the idea was cool, and saw no reason to copy his design. Taking a photograph or a video and producing a working automaton requires a great deal of creativity and innovation. I would go so far as to say, that the quantity of creativity and design to do so is much greater then you find significant for pottery. All that said, one of our primary missions is education. Even if a direct copy if made, a great deal of learning goes into it.
As an example of how this is no different from other things we have done. We have displayed the Gocupi, which was a successful kickstarter by a DMS member. Yet, the same device was largely ‘copied’ (I don’t know how much of the design (hardware and software) that person used from the original Polargraph that was published about six months earlier. Does that diminish Brandon’s work on his gocupi? I don’t think so.
In addition to the popularity of automatons, there are a number of other devices that provide a lot of excitement and interest to events like our open house. For instance, VECTOR doesn’t design and produce any original pin ball machines (Yet); however, there displayed pin ball machines are very popular attractions at our open houses. ‘Science’ devices like van de graph generators and wimhurst machines are all ‘copies’ of a dead man’s designs, yet they are extremely popular ways to get people excited about making things.
I’m going to bring this back down to a local level and out of the realm of debate.
Am I correct in reading your original post as saying that your intent to was to be inspired by the video/article to do a similar project, come up with your own solutions, give this guy a run for his money, and perhaps improve his design? To perhaps teach creative solutions to problems of physics and mechanics?
If I am, then yay! Thanks, that’s the answer I was going for.
Am I the only one who didn’t put much thought in to this and figured it would be cool to make one to show off…
Maybe akin to a clock… or a vase on the mantle… or one of those cheap china waterfall thingies the size of a large leather bound book?
I can’t count how many science museums I have been to that seem to have the same ‘go to’ stock exhibits, but they are still cool to look at and play with each time I see them.
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Nope, that was why I posted it.
My intent was irrelevant, but if your interested Abel summed it up nicely.
As far as I know not a single DMS member has produced a new art medium… Yet we consistently display their art works. The reason is simple, we are displaying their skills at creating that art, whether it is a painting, sculpture, or piece of pottery. The crafting of a mechanical object also requires skills. And when someone displays such a piece they are displaying their skill in creating it and not usually their skill in designing the piece.
A perfect example is the steam engine project that the Machine Shop has been working on. I fully expect that piece will be displayed at future open houses. And why shouldn’t it. It will display the skills of the multiple members who worked on producing it. Yet not a single member designed it, and in fact it was produced from a kit of parts commercially purchased.
We have the brain power to develop a CAD/CAM system for pottery. Software can account to any shrinkage when the piece is fired.
When you all stop laughing, consider this. 3D scan a car. Make a miniature in clay to serve as a vacuform mold for an R/C car body. We can do this, guys…
People have already produced open source 3D printers that produce pottery.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=clay+3D+printer&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8