Last time I left off trying to make a disk that can move vertically up and down and also rotate. I tried to produce rotational motion using a winch-like device:

By rotating it, I got the disk to spin a bit, although the vertical motion was not as smooth because of friction between the string and the wood:

Seeing that this mechanism works sort of, I started to try to incorporate handles for better control; I think the final product will look something like this:

I wasn’t sure how to combine the rotation and vertical motion into one handle/drive so they’ll probably remain separate. I’m using 2 pegboards stacked on top of each other, one which has the mechanism that will rotate the disk (the gears), and the other which will raise and lower the disk.

To scale the entire thing up so that it occupies 8 ft of space, I plan to install it in the stairwell. The 2 pegboards will go here:

And this disk will move up and down in this space:

(Or something like that). That way, I don’t have to move the controls/handles to be below the disk because that would require more time/thinking. The disk could be operated at the top of the stairs and someone else could just stand below or I guess you could just look at it from above. I’ll have to cut the pegboards to fit into the stair handles.