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Log #3

A project log for Bowling Ball Pendulum

Working on a scientific art piece to add pizzazz to the McMichael Science Center at Elon University.

peter-victoratosPeter Victoratos 04/14/2016 at 20:560 Comments

After contacting multiple bowling alleys and doing some number crunching, having a full-sized pendulum will be very over-budget and cause many obstacles for our team. To avoid these unnecessary obstacles (and potentially set ourselves up for a bigger project in the future), we are going to down-size the setup. Based upon basic sketches now it will be about the size of two shoe boxes stacked upon one another and will be made from less-expensive material. The ball material is still being discussed upon however the frame work is most likely going to be made from wood and some light metals.

To compensate for the lack in size, I am hoping to incorporate some type of system composed of mallets, weights and strips of metal to play a tune every time one of the balls passes through the center of the device. In the video we initially watched to get our idea, the bowling balls would slightly tap a hollow copper pipe and play a note. This would make the project more appealing.

The plan with making this smaller-scaled project is to more easily present it places as well as keep it as a solid plan of a larger-scale build (if the university allows). Pictures to come soon!

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