It has never been easier to build a complete Great Ball Contraption (GBC) loop yourself! The GBC 22 Ball Counter features a handy cool module which can be put up for a lot of uses.

This GBC is entirely built using only parts from the LEGO Mindstorms NXT 1.0 and can be referred to as model C of the 8527. This GBC makes sure you master the GBC building techniques and tricks so that you eventually also can build your own GBCs.

Play with programming and automate like a boss!

The GBC 22 Ball Counter features an advanced and accurate GBC ball detecting setup to use in all your GBC loops.
With this hardware setup a lot is possible and it gives the user a lot of flexibility to eventually come up with your very own awesome rocking code!

The main features are:

• • Light Sensor with adjustable height position: Detects the GBC Balls and can detect ball color difference. It also detect when no GBC Balls are present. By being able to adjust the height position of the Sensor you can even play more with the light levels of the Sensor in your code.

• • Ball counter motor: Takes for every revolution (and with great accuracy) only one GBC ball out of the ball input box. An attached mechanism will loosen up the GBC Balls so that they never get stuck.

• • Vibrate motor: If for any reason the GBC balls still got stuck, the vibrate motor will automatically kick in and loosen up the GBC Balls.

• • Ultrasonic Sensor: Detects if there is an output tray present. This prevents balls from missing it’s target.

• • Rotate platform motor: Rotates the entire platform to serve multiple output trays. With this function you can e.g. split your GBC in multiple routes!

• • Touch Sensor: Acts as an limit switch and tells the “Rotate platform motor” where it’s homing position is. Advanced Mechatronic Systems always use a setup like this to prevent failures.

• • Screen: Displays the number of counted balls.

The default program for the NXT acts as an advanced GBC ball counter with multiple outputs. The full program flow with much more detail is explained in the program it self. Understand our code and start playing yourself by adjusting variables, enabling/disabling functions and eventually come up with your very own awesome rocking code! This all makes it great addition for FIRST® LEGO® League events where teams can compete with each other to make the best Robot. Add other GBC Modules to make the loop complete and create a never ending ball flow. We have some great GBC Modules which serve in handy.

Builders challenge – Start inventing today!

What kind of Crazy Cool Code can you come up with? We encourage you to learn by play, get creative with our software, modify it or completely start from scratch.
If you do make new software or modified our software to make the GBC Robot do something else (and no hardware changes) we love to check it out and share it with our GBC community (with credits of course). Get in touch with us

The GBC 22 Ball Counter is created from parts of the LEGO 8527 Mindstorms NXT set but it should be possible to swap out the electronics with the ones from the LEGO 31313 Mindstorms EV3 set. Small hardware changes are required but most importantly new EV3 software has to be written. Get creative and take your GBC 22 Ball Counter to the next level. We would love to see your creations!

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USB Power Box

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This model is also included in the GBC Pro Pack