There have been very well made tutorials to make different mechanical timing systems, making it more accessible for people that want to attempt the complex mechanical timing systems and switches. Meanwhile there has also been a group that have decided to do it with something else than K'NEX; Lego NXT and custom systems.
But as more Electronic systems emerged more discussions about mechanical and electronic systems began to happen. Some of which had some very harsh statements made towards either of the two.
MMM is a contest where it's likely that mechanical and electronic systems have to battle against each other. Something that I always notice is how people bluntly say that one system is easier, better or more advanced than the other. Usually it's also the reason why one would pick a model (which in my opinion is something to take into consideration, but not before both tracks has been properly evaluated).
Is there really a better system? Is there a huge difference in difficulty between the two systems? What is your opinion on those systems?
I'll begin myself.
Personally I think we've reached a point where neither system is more difficult or better than the other. That being said, as one of the (if not the) first to make a fully automatic system via electronics I'm very much offended when electronics are being called-out for being easy or nowhere near as innovative as full mechanical automation. When I came up with the idea to make a electronic system I had to start from absolute scratch. I wanted to make a system where a button press would initiate a ride cycle and would keep track of what was going on. Much like how real roller-coasters work. A lot of planning and reading went into that, I've taught everything myself on the subject by reading a lot online and talking with other people with an interest in electronics. About components, calculations, scripting, etc. All the money I spent on it, all the mistakes I made during the build... Very little things are so dear to me as this system which I made entirely by myself, which has cost me loads of time to develop and to get it to work.
Soon after more systems spawned, the Arduino based systems became really popular for their price and how you could add or remove things you wanted. You could make them as complex as possible. The basics were all the same but the internals were far from similar. The ones who did build their own system shared a lot of knowledge on the subject. There are basic systems out there but also highly complex systems where one might wonder if it can still be considered a hobby.
That "massive" Arduino spawn ended about a year ago and ever since more comments rose in the favour of mechanical systems. Partially understandable, we put in all of our effort once and developed systems which are very much interchangeable between models. Though the effort once put in seems to just fade away over time in the eyes of others. No matter how freely interchangeable our systems may look there is still a lot of work that needs to be put in programming for every new model, no ride is identical.
I guess it's no more than reasonable to be very upset when you have laid out a foundation for others, then having your effort washed away by comments about electronic systems being too 'simple' or too 'easy'.
If that was really the case, then why aren't there more of those systems? Time has proven that those systems aren't in need of a huge investment. It's easily doable to build such a system for a 2 number figure. I wouldn't dare call such systems elitist any more because all the knowledge is out there already. The only thing that might hold some back is programming, which requires some effort to learn. That isn't really a bad thing to know a thing or two about anyway.
The knowledge for mechanical automation is also out there, simple mechanical automation has over the years also become more accessible to others. It's quite funny how both systems are actually very much the same. Mechanical automation relies on a lot of trial and error for timing and a lot of fine tuning. The same goes for electronic systems, instead of switching gears in and out of places we are touching keys on our keyboard to try and write a logical program that makes everything move the way we want it to move, not to mention a lot of variables need to be played around with to get it to work to your likings.
When it comes to complexity we are talking about a lot of similarities too. Over time you gain knowledge about the systems which allow you to make more advanced things. Mechanical systems start moving more things than just station gates or a drop floor. Where electronic systems start getting more complex by utilizing proper block sections to allow for more trains to run at the same time without colliding.
Both systems require a decent amount of knowledge, one of mechanical systems and the other of electronics and programming. Neither of this knowledge comes for free, for any system you are required to put time and effort into it. For this very reason I don't think that it can be justified to call one system more impressive than the other. Both very different techniques but still stupidly similar.
So what's you opinion on this?
Edited by Jogumpie, 08 April 2014 - 04:26 PM.
Grammar nazi
I agree that both methods are similar, we all use problem solving to get to our desired result. I think that the only difference is the capabilities.
