Blue Fox - Final Video

Ten months of construction, four days of filming, two weeks of editing, here it is. The final video of Blue Fox, nearly a year in the making.

Blue Fox Video Progress

The final video for Blue Fox is, without a doubt, the most tedious video I have ever tried to make. My friend and I shot over 11 gigabytes of HD video the other night, and after trying 4 video editors (cyberlink, sony vegas, adobe premiere pro, final cut pro) and 2 computers, I still have been unable to find a video editor that won't either throw the audio out of synch or simply crash during the editing. From the looks of it, it'll be a while yet on the final video.

Wind-Powered K'nex Ball Machine

My friend Sam and I built this ball machine over the past few days using the pieces left over from Blue Fox. This is, to my knowledge, the first 100% wind powered K'nex ball machine ever constructed. The 6 foot tall lift hill is powered entirely by a 3.5 foot diameter wind turbine made only with K'nex pieces. It has over 4,000 pieces, stands 8 feet tall and has 50 feet of track. It is equipped with an automatic transmission which ensures that no matter what direction the blades turn, the lift hill always goes the same way, doubling its overall efficiency.
We call it Don Quixote.

Blue Fox - LED ball prototype

Using 3 button cell batteries and 2 ultra-bright blue LEDs, I created an illuminated K'nex ball, with light shining out both of the holes. The ball is extremely bright, and has a switch on the inside so it can be turned off. The two small blocks of foam keep the electronics centered in the ball so it does not get unbalanced and shield them from impacts.

Blue Fox - Video and possible logo design

Here is a possible logo for Blue Fox. The final version will be animated. I tried really hard to avoid using blue and orange contrast... but come on! Something is called the blue fox. That can't not be blue and orange. Just saying...

Also, here is 2 minutes of unedited, raw video of the finished machine as it will most likely be quite some time before I get an official video produced, I am still waiting on a friend of mine.

Blue Fox - Path Topology Diagram

This diagram shows the 17 connections between the 6 towers in Blue Fox. The towers are shown in their actual locations around my room. However, since this only shows path topology, the lines between them only show connections, not the actual shapes and routes of the paths. I used this diagram to help balance the number of incoming and outgoing paths from each tower as I constructed the machine.

Blue Fox - DONE!

My most complex ball machine to date is finally finished after 10 months of construction. It has 22,000 pieces, 120 moving parts, 86 gears, 16 paths, 7 motors and 6 lifts. I’ll make a video later, right now I have a lot of reliability testing to do.