Linkage Designs

Wing Mechanisms

Wing Mechanisms

Repurposing Jansen's Leg Mechanism: Innovative mechanical…
Removing Redundant ConstraintsMDA Press

How to Fix SW Motion Analysis Error: Too Many Redundant Constraints

Kevin Chen,  J. Michael McCarthy,  Shaun Bentley The…
Six-Legged Mechanical Walkers:  Spring 2020 Highlights

Six-Legged Mechanical Walkers: Spring 2020 Highlights

The leg mechanisms of these six-legged walkers use two coordinated…
Four-Legged Mechanical Walkers: Spring 2020 Highlights

Four-Legged Mechanical Walkers: Spring 2020 Highlights

The design of these four-legged walkers relies on Curvature theory…
Walker Teams 2, 4 and 5MDA

Four-legged Mechanical Walkers: Teams 2, 4 and 5

Here are videos of the designs for the four legged mechanical…
Mechanical Walker designed by Team 6MDA

Four Legged Mechanical Walker: Teams 1, 3 and 6

Here are videos of the designs for the four legged mechanical…
Leg MechanismJMM

Construction of a Leg Mechanism

This is a series of four videos that show how to: Specify…
Rectilinear Six-bar

Rectilinear Six-Bar (Candy Coating Linkage)

Jeff Glabe designed this six-bar linkage to move through six…
Hummingbird Spatial Six-bar

Hummingbird Spatial Six-bar Linkage

This spatial six-bar linkage provides a compact flapping wing…
Flapping Wing Prototype

Flapping Wing Prototype

This is the manufacturing prototype for the flapping wing mechanism…
Soil Conditioning Port Valve

RPR-2SS Soil Conditioning Valve

This is an animation by Benjamin Liu of a spatial RPR-2SS six-bar…
Flapping wing mechanism

Flapping Wing Mechanism

Benjamin Liu prepared this animation of the flapping wing…
Cursive character for dragon

Linkages draw Bezier curves

Here is an example of our Bezier curve drawing linkages. The…
Yang Signature

Linkage that signs your name

Yang Liu has developed Bezier linkages that trace trigonometric…
Prototype Butterfly Linkage

Manufacturing Prototype for the Butterfly Linkage

This animation is taken from Yang Liu's detailed design drawings…
Whale Linkage

Bezier Linkages

Recent research on the design of linkages by Yang Liu has…
Butterfly drawing mechanism

Design of Drawing Mechanisms

Mechanical systems that draw trigonometric curves provide a versatile…
Mechanisms and Robotics Conference

2016 Mechanisms and Robotics Conference

The 2016 Mechanisms and Robotics conference is part of International…
MotionGen Horse

Motion Gen Linkage Design App

MotionGen is a planar four-bar linkage simulation and synthesis…
Trifolium Contra-parallelograms

Trifolium using contra-parallelograms

Yang Liu shows that a simple linkage can draw the trifolium curve. For…

Linkage Design Concepts

Jessica Koa designed the flower with petals actuated by six-bar linages.

Link Yun’s flower with six-bar linkages moving the petals.

Benjamin Liu’s Terrarium uses six-bar linkages to open the glass sides.

DJ Fuller’s Jack-o’Lantern uses six-bar linkages to open the segments.

Jessica Kao developed this sofa bed that opens using a six-bar linkage.

Ling Yun used our sofa beg linkage to display a gift.

Design Innovation

Student designs of six-bar linkages

Andrew Brouwer’s six-bar linkage to guide the petals.

Kamil Samaan designed this six-bar linkage.

Bojun Lin’s six-bar linkage guiding the pedals of a flower.

Colin Sledge’s six-bar flower.

Frank Liu’s six-bar flower.

Cameron Turner’s six-bar linkage flower.

Adam Shutt designed this six-bar to guide the opening of the petals of a flower.

Mohamed Ali designed this six-bar to guide the wings of this butterfly.

Tim Rasmussen designed this six-bar linkage to guide the petals of this flower.

Hsuan-chen Wan used MechGen 3 to design a six-bar linkage to guide the petals of the flower.

Student designs of four-bar linkages


Hsuan-chen Wan’s animation of a four-bar linkage that moves the petals of a flower.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvSmz3hYk-o[/youtube]


Cameron Turner’s design of a flower that moves with a four-bar linkage.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV0hQQn0OfI[/youtube]


Mohamed Ali’s four-bar linkage for the flower.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoCPh53_f9M[/youtube]


Scott Bougie’s animation of his flower design.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_1v7PjDWjg[/youtube]


Frank Liu’s four-bar linkage design for the petal movement.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsFgoPgpmXA[/youtube]


Yang Liu’s four-bar linkage flower.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWGrp2tvf0Q[/youtube]


Kamal Samaan’s design of the four-bar linkage driven flower.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO6JTY9HpLs[/youtube]


The flower designed by Colin Sledge.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFudL7fBUBU[/youtube]


This is Andrew Brouwer’s design for the flower.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s81Lrjsli_Y[/youtube]


Adan Amarillas designed this linkage.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6ZBBVFFivQ[/youtube]


Brandon Creager animated a spiral opening for the flower.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oar2wuqLxyA[/youtube]


Adam Shutts designed this linkage to open the petals.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5phQxLbKrU[/youtube]


Bojun Lin designed this flower linkage.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Bi90cgQaU8[/youtube]


Kelly Lin designed this linkage.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm3P_dn3Zys[/youtube]


Tim Rasmussen designed the linkage to open and close the flower petals.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNMiDrbZGrU[/youtube]


This is the four-bar linkage designed by Ryan Kuehne.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jWBDXI81t4[/youtube]


Siqi Shi designed this four-bar linkage flower.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qvh9onP7cI[/youtube]


Tianming Cheng designed this four-bar linkage flower.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcnwIhc5-rU[/youtube]


Brendan Smith uses the movement of the petal linkage for a different application.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqAHqWz4cNk[/youtube]