The maze is fun to solve! It was created on my CNC machine using a program I wrote to design the maze, trace it out with a flat-end (cylindrical) bit, then carve out a wider path underneath the openings with a ball (round) bit. The last step was a little tricky because the machine has to traverse the entire maze without retracting and plunging, except in the starting spot. The intention was for the marble to remain stuck in the maze even when the board is held upside-down. It's a little easier to see in the close-up.
It doesn't quite work, however. The marble can still fall out at any junction of three or more paths. Still, the issue isn't insurmountable and, with a little more math, I think I can work around it.
Incidentally, what I carved was a 6-junction maze, where the maze can consider 6 different ways of leaving any given point. I also designed the program to work with 3-junction mazes and the traditional 4-junction mazes. The mock-ups below show the differences, but the program isn't able to simulate the round ball bit the way I described earlier so it's not a perfect preview of the process.
that's way cool. a couple additional ideas to consider:
ReplyDelete-- could you do a plunge through hole to go to the other side and make a two-sided maze? I think you mentioned the idea at the beginning of the post. You might be able to put thin plexiglass on each side if you couldn't do the routed hole the way you want (which is really clever, by the way).
-- could you have the letters be part of the maze? they could have 3-4 exits the ball bearing could go through. Or, if you did the plexiglass/two-sided idea, they could be where the pass-throughs are.
All in all, I am very impressed with what you're able to do with your tool - very cool to watch!
Yes, I'm working towards both of those. It'd be fun to have the marble go to the back of the board between letters, so you have to switch sides several times as it traverses the name.
DeleteIt's a cool idea that I may work on once I perfect the one-sided maze. One of the problems, however, is that the board may be too thin to support both sides, especially where the letters are indented.