Has anyone so far created a representation of a 4-bit binary number using 4 Bits (blue part)? The fifth ball should be blocked using the Interceptor. For example, if I want to represent the number 8, it should be, from left to right: blue, red, red, red. One puzzle should solve all 16 possibilities, depending on how I position the Bit elements (left or right).
I am not quite sure what you are asking for. Are you asking for a design that behaves as follows? We use 4 blue bit pieces (and any other pieces needed to complete this task…). When the trigger is hit, four balls will successively run through the four bit pieces, and the pattern of ball colors at the bottom should be a binary representation of the four-bit number with value depending on the original setting of the blue bit pieces? For example, if the bits were set left, right, left, left, then this represents the number 0100, so the balls at the bottom should be, left to right, rbrr. I guess that there should be an initial ball always of the same color (say, blue) that is the first ball released when the trigger is pushed to get the computation going, so actually the pattern would be rbrrb, and we ignore that rightmost b. Is this what you had in mind?
Here is a solution to the problem. Set the top three bits to 0 (to the left). Set the next bit (just under the crossover) to 1 (to the right). Set the bottom row of 4 bits to the desired output, with 0 = red and 1 = blue. Push either lever to start. Ignoring the first ball released (the rightmost), the pattern of blue/red will indicate your settings of the 4 bits, and the next ball will land in an interceptor when the computation is completed. This seems far more complicated than it needs to be. I suspect there is a simple solution, but I don’t see it at the moment.
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