Nice simple design for a nonlinear device. To figure the speeds for various operations on a bead roller probably took some time to figure the heights for positions but ultimately brings it to a simple repeatable process. Nicely done, curte!

Regarding Marvs fine analysis and Jon's observant additions, it's actually not dissimilar to how ADC (analog to digital converter) chips work or perhaps in this case, how a DAC (Digital to Analog converter)...basically a variable signal to a step...literally. I spent a great deal of time at one point analyzing the sound signal quality of Analog converted to MP3 at various audio frequencies and sample rates to see the quantization distortions (rounding error), non-linearity and jitter from the algorithms. Curte's project reminded me of the hours and hours at the scope.

Perhaps a new term/acronym could evolve from Marv and Jon's thoughts on these processes, calling it CFEA (Cognitive Finite Element Analysis)...just a thought.

PJ