All Blog Posts

UCLA vehicle

UCLA Supermileage joining the 2012 Energy Invitational

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UCLA's supermileage vehicle will race on May 20, 2012 as…
Engine Animation

Wikipedia and mechanisms and robotics

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Type “mechanism” or “robotics” into google.com…
Adjustable spinal implant

Adjustable spinal implant

Brandon Tsuge and Tim Rasmussen developed this concept for an…
Instrument for spinal implant

Instrument for spinal implant

This instrument is a six-bar linkage designed to separate vertebral…
2012 Energy Invitational Poster

2012 UCI Energy Invitational

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Please contact me if you would like to join us at the 2012 UCI…
MechGen 3

Mechanism Generator 3.0

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Our Mechanism Generator 3.0 software reads a SolidWorks sketch…
Rice Transplanter

Rice Transplanter

This rice transplanter selects seedlings from the hopper and…
5SS Spatial Steering Linkage

5SS Spatial Steering Linkage

Mark Plecnik designed this spatial 5SS steering linkage to increase…
MechGen 2

Mechanism Generator 2.0 (MechGen 2)

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We have a trial version of our Mechanism Generator 2.0 software…
2011 UCI Fall Design Review

2011 UCI Fall Design Review

400 seniors in majors across UCI’s Henry Samueli School of…
Folding movement for wings for the Icon A5

Folding movement for wings for the Icon A5

This spherical four-bar linkage concept by Kaustubh Sonawale…
Spherical linkage concept to fold a wing

Spherical linkage concept to fold a wing

This is a spherical four-bar linkage concept by Kaustubh Sonawale…
Spare tire deployment linkage

Spare tire deployment linkage

Kaustubh Sonawale designed this four-bar linkage to move a truck…
Engine Animation
Oberlin Sphere

Instruments for Natural Philosophy

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This site has photographs of a large number of devices used to…
Engine Animation

Mentoring program for collegiate competition teams

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Mentor program for collegiate competition projects Introduction: SAE…
UCI Rocket launch

UCI Rocket launch

Here is a video of the launch of the 2011 UCI Rocket. Congratulations…
Wikipedia Logo

Machines on Wikipedia

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I have spent quite a bit of time revising articles on machines…
Engine Animation

Photos from Thursday, 2011 FSAE California

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Select this link to access the SAE SoCal section facebook page…
2011 UCI Engineering Winter Design Review

2011 UCI Engineering Winter Design Review

This is a video of the 2011 Engineering Winter Design Review…
Engine Animation

Photo of Competitors at 2011 EI2

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This is a group photo of the competitors at our recent 2011…
Engine Animation

Photos: 2011 UCI Energy Invitational

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Lee-Huang Chen and Corey Sandler have posted photos from our…
Another view of UCI's Delta CNG-Electric racecar

UCI Seniors prepare Delta for the Energy Invitational

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The UCI Delta racecar has a CNG 450cc engine combined with…
Vectored electric drive

3rd Year MEs and 4th Year EEs team up to run at EI2

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Third year Mechanical Engineering majors joined a team of Electrical…
UCIs Beta Car

1st and 2nd Year UCI Students to run in EI2

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First and second year Engineering students at UCI have prepared…
Saddleback College Formula V

Saddleback College joins 2011 Energy Invitational

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Saddleback College will run their Formula V at the 2011 UCI…
MillenWorks Light Utility Vehicle

MillenWorks to show LUV at 2011 Energy Invitational

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MillenWorks will show their LUV (Light Utility Vehicle) at…
Toyota 2010 Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle

Toyota to show two vehicles at 2011 Energy Invitational

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Toyota will demonstrate their Advanced Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle…
Smitty Training

Smitty’s Engineering Training Videos

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The training videos that Smitty developed for our design classes…
Chipman's Electric Car

Philip Chipman’s Electric Wind to compete in EI2

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Phil Chipman, a local inventor, is returning to the UCI Energy…
UCLA Supermileage

UCLA Supermileage may join Energy Invitational

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Melody Vo of the UCLA Super mileage team reports that the change…
Brian Wang 1

Brian Wang to compete in the Energy Invitational

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Brian Wang has sent some photographs of the vehicle he plans…
Hardtop Convertible New

Revised Three-panel Hardtop Convertible Linkage

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Oscar Alonso replaced the parallelogram drive linkages of the…
Horse Scupture

Kinetic Sculpture: Bucephale

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This video shows a kinetic sculpture of a horse by the artist…
Spherical Fourbar

Spherical Four-Bar Linkages

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Here is something new. Our Mathematica notebook can find…
UCI Fall 2010 Soccerbots

UCI Fall 2010 Soccerbots

Entering UCI engineering students designed, built, and tested…
Geometric Design of Linkages book

Geometric Design of Linkages, second edition

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I am pleased to say that the second edition of my book, Geometric…
Four-bar Synthesis

Linkage Synthesis Demonstration

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This shows the operation of our Mathematica notebook for five-position…
21st Century Kinematics

21st Century Kinematics

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This is a draft of my editorial on 21st Century Kinematics for…
Schedule for 2011 Energy Invitational

2011 UCI Energy Invitational

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The 2011 UCI Energy Invitational will be at Willow Springs…
Kinematics and Computers

Kinematics, Polynomials and Computers–A Brief History

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Select this link to the .pdf of Kinematics, Polynomials,…
Peugeot 407 convertible

Peugeot 407 Convertible Hard Top

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  This is a video on Yahoo! that shows the movement of…
Mathematica Notebook for Linkage Synthesis

Mathematica Notebook for Four-Bar Linkage Synthesis

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Select this link to download our Mathematica notebook for…
Convertible Hardtop

Hardtop Convertible Linkage

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This SolidWorks animation of the drive linkage for a hardtop…
Six-bar Retrieval Linkage for an ROV

Six-bar Retrieval Linkage for an ROV

This six-bar linkage was designed to extend from the body of…
Dumping Linkage

Six-bar Trash Dumping Linkage

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This compact six-bar linkage is designed to lift and dump a trash…
Shelf Deploy

Six-bar Shelf Linkage

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This six-bar linkage is designed to move a shelf from a position…
Monitor Linkage

Monitor Six-bar Linkage

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This video shows our latest model for the six-bar linkage that…
2010 FSAE California

2010 Formula SAE California

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The Formula SAE California collegiate race car engineering competition…
Autonomous Table Soccer at UCI

Autonomous Table Soccer at UCI

The student project for UCI’s MAE 106 mechanical systems laboratory…
Jensen Site

Theo Jansen’s site

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My link to a video of Theo Jansen's walking machines seems unreliable,…

Technical information for mechanical components

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Stock Drive Products has an array of downloadable catalogs…
2010 Energy Invitational

2010 UCI Energy Invitational Video

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The UCI Energy Invitational has competitors run on a course that…
Mechanism Generator

SolidWorks Mechanism Generator

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Mechanism Generator is a SolidWorks add-in that assists in…
Archway

Prototype spherical archway

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Smitty constructed this prototype of our spherical deployable…
Drawer Deploy

Six-bar linkage prototypes

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Here are two videos of our first attempt to build prototypes…

Automotive components

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Chris Longhurst has assembled a number of descriptive articles…
Monitory Deploy

TV deployment linkage

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Mikhail Zhuk generated this animation of Jerome Choe's concept…
Cam Driven Artist

Cam-driven artist mechanical toy

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This video shows the operation of a cam-driven toy artist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT01OPRU57E I…
Delft Models

Linkage models at TU-Delft

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Prof. A. J. Klein Breteler maintains an array of mechanism models…

Parallel Mechanisms information center

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Ilian Bonev maintains bibliography and patent databases on parallel…
Kinetic Horse

Kinetic horse sculpture

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This articulated model horse is by the artist James Watt. A…
Deployable Arch

Deployable archway

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This animation of Jerome Choe's concept for a spherical archway…
Shelter Deployment

Stackable fold-up emergency shelter

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Mikhail Zhuk animated this design concept for an eight-bar linkage…
Elementary Robotics

Elementary Robotics

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The basic properties of robots can developed by studying planar…
Intro to Mechanisms

CMU’s Introduction to Mechanisms

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Yi Zhang, Susan Finger and Stephannie Behrens have prepared an…

Four-bar linkage analysis: Slider-crank

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The slider-crank is an important mechanism with a wide range…
Four-bar linkage analysis

Four-bar linkage analysis: 4R quadrilateral

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The four-bar linkage is a basic machine component. It comes in…

DC motor torque and power

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A copy of my notes on DC motor torque and power can be downloaded…

DC motor basics

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The basic principles of DC motors are presented by Joe Wolfe…

Mechanical Properties of Steel

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The MatWeb site provides detailed information about materials…
Total Materia

Unified Numbering System for Materials

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There are a variety of numbering systems for materials such as…
Koenigsegg Door

Koenigsegg door system

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The doors of the Koenigsegg CCX open using the "dihedral synchro-helix…

Material Properties Charts

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Cambridge University provides a useful overview of materials…
Jansen and Klann Legs

Comparison of Klann and Jansen leg linkages

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Joseph Klann provided a useful comparison of the leg designs…
Mondo Spider

Mondo Spider walking machine

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This walking machine is known as the Mondo Spider. More information…
Jansen Strandbeest

Theo Jansen’s walking machine

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Theo Jansen builds amazing walking machines. Each leg is an…
Periodic Table

NIST Periodic Table

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The National Institute of Standards and Technology provides…

Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing

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This is a link to notes on Geometric Design and Tolerancing by…
Linkage for an RV deployable top

Linkage for an RV deployable top

This design concept is an 8-bar linkage developed by Minshan…
Dishwasher linkage

Dishwasher linkage

This linkage to lift the lower rack in a dishwasher was developed…
2009 Formula SAE CA

2009 Formula SAE California

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Here is a link to a facebook album showing the racecars and teams…

Materials Selection in Mechanical Design

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Michael Ashby presents materials information in a practical format…
Ten-bar Drive

10-bar drive linkage

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This 10-bar linkage is designed to drive a scissors movement…
Timing Belt Theory

Timing belt theory

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ThomasNet provides a link to a useful white paper on Timing Belt…
Gearing

Gear geometry

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Gear geometry data is available from PIC Design Inc. which is…
Colorado Videos

Mechanisms videos at Colorado State

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Prof. David Alciatore has a large number of videos illustrating…
Spherical Deployment

Spherical deployable linkage assembly

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This assembly of spherical rhombus linkages expands to enclose…
Chris Sangwin

C. J. Sangwin’s linkage movies

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Chris Sangwin has a nice collection of linkage movies at How…

Brock Engineering’s mechanism home page

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Fred Klingener has generated a number of interesting mechanism…
Bennett Linkage

Linkage animations on synthetica

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This link connects to a web-page with a number of linkage animations.…
KMODDL Tour

Kinematic models for design

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The KMODDL team at Cornell University maintains an excellent…
Fasteners

Machine screw dimensions

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According to Shigley and Mischke's Mechanical Engineering Design…
Spherical Car Door

Spherical eight-bar linkage for a car door

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This spherical eight-bar linkage was designed by GimSong Soh…
Diesel Engine Animation

Diesel Engine Animations

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This are two animation of the operation of a diesel engine.  The…
Engine Animation

Engine Animation

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This YouTube animation shows the animated assembly of a solid…
Engine Animation
Engine Animation

Welcome to Mechanical Design 101

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Mechanical Design 101 is a collection of resources to educate,…