Marble Painter

Marble Painter is a machine that allows you to paint with marbles using canvas movement and a color randomizer. The whole machine is divided into 3 big parts where we have the ball release/randomizer, the paint dipper and the canvas movement mechanism.

When the child presses a button, a singular marble ball is released and goes through our randomizer which has possible outputs. Each output leads to a different color of paint where the marble is dipped. The randomizer will spin in different directions (CCW/CW) in different speeds.

When the marble reaches the paint bucket, the marble is placed in the laddle which has holes. The sensor on the track detects when a marble is placed in the laddle, and the motor attached to the dipper drops the marble onto the canvas. The laddle is made of plastic and has holes in it to get rid of the excess paint when lifting up the marble. In order for the excess paint to not reach the motor, there will be a shield on top of the motor. The length of the arm of the laddle and the speed of the motor will be adjusted so that the marble is not “flung” onto the canvas.

The marble is dropped onto the moving canvas which has a tilting table motion and is constantly moving. Once the marble is placed onto the canvas is will naturally paint the paper as it rolls off to the side. The canvas will have 4 motors attached to it, each moving in a crank motion. We reference Mechanical Movements No. 93 to create this type of vertical motion as it is simple and will be easy to replicate. Each crank will move one after another to create the tilt movement of the whole canvas. The motors will be fixed The balls that roll off the side of the canvas will drop into the “water moat” surrounding the machine, where the children can wash the marbles themselves and put them back into the starting point.

The canvas sheet will be 1ftx1ft, and will be clipped to the board. The child can take their painting. The canvas sheet will be replaced for each child. The child can choose colors they wanna paint with.

Updates after discussion Monday

After our discussion on Monday, we have decided to change the ball release/randomizer mechanism as well as the paint dipper part. We also decided to add some tactility to the canvas moving mechanism.

First for the ball release, we decided to replace it with a marble run track with 3 sepearte tracks. The children would choose one of the tracks to pour their paint down and them drop their marble onto the track. This will paint the marble as it goes though the marble run and will naturally drop on to the moving canvas. Then the ball will paint the canvas accordingly. The marble run would be made of pipes and we will pour down a watered-down acrylic paint so it flows easily. We want to incorporate stairs and ladder structures and let gravity do the work for the ball release.

For the canvas-moving mechanism, we stuck with our original design but decided to add springs to conect the crank mechanism and the canvas board. This will allow the children to press on the canvas to change up the motion and paint strokes of the marble as well as encourage engagement from them. The children will be able to make their painting more personal.