The whole thing just makes sense as a software dev. There's an input standard, output standard, and I guess a processing rate expectation (or not - that was probably the second biggest issue we faced was some slow contraptions that would back up). (The first biggest issue was a contraption that "pinged" the balls through the air to a landing container and would sometimes send them off randomly or kids would try to catch them.)
This is partly from LEGO fans previous work on railroad, town, space base, etc. modular builds where they have a spec for where each unit should connect and people bring in their own creations and link them all up.
I've always wanted to do something like the great ball contraption in general at makerfaires but open to all kinds of build materials, techniques, power, etc.