Found some things that we could take inspiration from in getting the packages to move with the stirling. It could work kind of like a water wheel. Instead of the fly wheel being a gear, you could attach containers on it like on a water wheel where you could put your packages. As it rotates, the packages move up the wheel and are dropped on to some kind of chute. Gravity will do the rest of the work in moving it.
From videos of marble machines there were some things I think that we could maybe use. In the video below particular features I want to experiment with are the levers, which control how many marbles can drop down on to a different chute at any one time, and the flower pot vortex.
(RonaldWalters47, 2010)
The lever is sensitive to weight, it has a counterweight on one end to reset it, and on the other end it gathers marbles until the right number of marbles giving the required weight tips it over setting the marbles free to go down a different chute. This would be a good way to stagger the number of packages going down a particular chute at any one time to prevent jams in a particular direction.
The vortex funnel is amazing in my opinion. I don't know if we could use it, but it definitely slows down the marbles, giving them time to get to where they need to go so that they don't crowd up a path way.
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Reference List
RonaldWalters47. (2010, December 18). Marble Machine - Ring Gear Lift - Figure 8 Transfer - Vortex Funnel [Video file]. Retrieved April 26, 2012, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzIG9stFXSI&feature=related
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