"The Amazing Race" for Linstol
This one is definitely not my usual type of build. This very large rolling ball sculpture was built for a trade show booth and has a specific purpose in how it was built. Its purpose is to show how a logistics company - Linstol - moves your freight around the world better and faster than anyone else.
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This is shown with the use of two different balls with different weights on tracks that merge and separate 7 times. One ball is plastic (the red ones) and does not weigh much, the other ball is a shiny solid steel and is very heavy. Spanning the entire 7ft height is a chain lift that brings both ball types to the top and releases them on the same track.
As the balls move down the paths there are 7 teeter totters that the balls roll over. The plastic ball keeps on rolling across and it does not tip. When the steel ball rolls over the teeter totter it does tip when the ball reaches the other end and sends it onto a separate path from the plastic ball. The plastic ball represents Listol and takes an easy, quick path from top to bottom - smooth and efficient.
The metal ball drops into a slow path dominated by zig-zags and slow sections, and takes 3 times as long to reach the bottom.
Each of the 7 teeter totters are a type of ball separator and have a specific name: Origin Port, Sea Freight, Destination Port, Rail, Warehouse, Overflow Warehouse, Caterer/DC, Plane - These are the main events of shipping that freight usually encounters.
The metal balls purposefully take a slower path, and the plastic ball would end up at the bottom back at the lift before a metal ball that was already halfway down the tracks. Also, every 4th ball takes a different chain lift that releases the ball back at the warehouse level. This was to show 25% of the freight that is reinserted into the system by going back to the warehouse and restarts its freight journey from that point.
