Mechanical Prototyping
Mechanical Prototyping was a class I took in my second semester of my first year. In this class we created 4 different mechanical prototyping projects. We started with a simple project which was to make a box that is inspired by a place you love. I chose to make my box an airplane window that when you opened it up, you could see views of the different cities you were traveling to. The box is all laser cut.
We then moved onto a manual automata. This sculpture had to incorporate an animal or some form of nature. I decided I wanted my piece to be a little on the fun side, and I had a monkey rowing a banana boat. The automata is also laser cut.
Both of the above projects were individual and helped us get into the process of designing for fabrication. Finally, we had two kinetic sculptures that were both team projects of four people. The first sculpture was the sheet metal sculpture where we had to use a great deal of sheet metal in our sculpture. We were given a box of materials that we could use along with a $25 budget and one plate of 3-D printed parts. In this sculpture we had to include a set of gears, chain drive, cam, 4-bar linkage, and a slot slider. This sculpture was also powered by a motor connected to a 12 V power supply. One neat part of the sculpture is that is can be taken off the stand and rolled on the floor with the mechanisms still working. Watch the video to see how it works.
The second sculpture was a traditional shop sculpture where we had to use mill and lathe parts in our sculpture. We were given a different box of materials along with the same budget and 3-D printed parts. We had to use all of the mechanisms in the first sculpture along with 2 other mechanisms of our choice.
