Building a self looping "SMOT"

[elecar]

Hi Telecom, us mere mortals do not need to understand, all we need to know is it works. It is amazing how the ball traveling a further distance ends up at the same place faster than the ball traveling the shorter distance. I am sure someone smarter than me can derive some work from that.

[DreamThinkBuild]

Hi Elecar,

I whipped up some simple tests with just the ramp.

I tried neo magnets since I have many of those on hand. Neo magnets are very strong and from my experiment did not allow the 2cm diameter steel ball to fall back down. The sphere moves up the ramp and just sticks to the side. I would need a larger sphere to get the fall away effect with neos.

With the few ceramic magnets I have they work much better. I get the effect of the ball rolling up a slight incline then rolling back. I see where the challenge is switching, because it still wants to stick to one side but decreases as it falls back.

I also tried with a smaller sphere 1cm diam, it will pull up faster but stick more. It didn't have enough mass to fall back.

The switch between magnetic and fall back to gravity is where the challenge lies in this design.

I attached a picture of the quick ramp tests. The rise isn't very big because I don't have enough ceramic magnets to create a strong enough pull. (3.2mm per flat Lego block so the end height for 3 flats+track 6.4mm= 16mm height at the end)

[happyfunball]

Anyhow I believe the "high road low road effect is probably the way to get some work from the ramp.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2QPMO6bo4E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzZ9AKwZw28

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoOtDBCJ7T0

I've never learned this in school, but it appears that the ball which gains more speed in the beginning has more energy, even though the potential energy is the same.
Not sure how it can be explained though...

Interesting

Do both balls eventually stop at the same point if they're allowed to keep going? I'd assume they must

[elecar]

Hi DTB, I was not able to get the ball away from the field with neos, I have a large collection of magnets but ended up buying C8s which did the trick.
On your test ramp if  you add a ramp that feeds the ball into the magnetic ramp (like shown in my video) you will get the ball to travel further up the ramp even when the magnets are placed further away, you should find that your ball will not only just roll back, but will roll right out of the bottom of the magnetic ramp.

Hi Happyfunball, I have no idea if they would end up the same distance if the tracks continued on a level, but it does appear, at least to me that the ball taking the longer route is traveling faster at the exit ? I could be wrong.

[elecar]

Hi DTB try this with your test rig.