- Lower incline angle for the chute. As it is now, I can't pitch it up more than a few degrees with the tripod, because then the balls roll over the release flap too quickly for the servo to keep up.
- Maybe redesign the frame that holds the hopper-stirring servo, because it gets stuck sometimes. A wider stance would help to keep the legs farther away from the hole, which should mitigate the issue. I might also be able to get by with just a different servo motion. It rotates continuously right now, but doing a back-and-forth motion would probably allow it to unstick itself most of the time. The servo would still be stalled while it's stuck, though, which isn't great. I might try it and then implement a redesign if I end up killing a servo.
- I need to add a manual pitch angle input potentiometer to adjust the ball release flap time when the pitch angle changes. I plan to use a string hanging off the knob of the pot to manually "sense" the pitch angle. I have all the math for this already programmed, but I need to actually wire in the pot and calibrate it. I could use an electronic gyro, but that seems more complicated and prone to issues like drift and calibration errors. Plus I still have a bunch of potentiometers left over (there are four already incorporated).
- Not crucial, but having all that weight sitting on top of the pan servo is not ideal. It works well enough, but it is a bit wobbly and requires care when moving it. Maybe I'll redesign that at some point.
I'll post the final video once I finish everything, but for now here's another picture.
