Mechanical systems that draw trigonometric curves provide a versatile way to draw complex curves. Yang Liu designed this serial chain consisting of 14 links coupled by a belt drive to draw the Butterfly curve. The Butterfly curve is an example of a trigonometric plane curve, and our study of Kempe’s design of linkages to draw […]
The 2016 Mechanisms and Robotics conference is part of International Design Engineering Technical Conferences organized by ASME International in Charlotte, North Caroline, August 22-24. Plenary speaker Bernard Roth is the Academic Director of Stanford University’s d.school and the author of the Achievement Habit. For some reason, ASME has broken these links to the 2016 IDETC conference, but you can find […]
MotionGen is a planar four-bar linkage simulation and synthesis app that helps users synthesize planar four-bar linkages by assembling two of the planar RR-, RP- and PR-dyad types, (R refers to a revolute or hinged joint and P refers to a prismatic or sliding joint). The input task is a planar motion given as a set […]
A mechanical computer that draws an algebraic curve is a useful device, and Mathematicians Michael Kapovich and John Millson have shown that a design always exists. This is Yang Liu’s design of a mechanical system that draws an elliptic cubic curve. Here is how it is done. Algebraic curve. An algebraic curve is the set of points P=(x, […]
Yang Liu shows that a simple linkage can draw the trifolium curve. For comparison here is the Kempe linkage that draws a trifolium curve obtained by Alexander Kobel.
Patents including six-bar linkages are rare. Thousands of U.S. Patents have been awarded over the past forty years that involve four-bar linkages, but less than a hundred involve six-bar linkages, Figure 1. Add two bars to a four-bar to get a six-bar. A four-bar linkage, familiar to all mechanical designers, has an input lever connected […]
This video shows highlights of the 2015 Energy Invitational on UCI’s Campus: The 2016 UCI Energy Invitational will be May 21, 2016 on UCI’s Campus. The course will be along East Peltason Drive between Los Trancos and Bison.
This animation by Yang Liu is inspired by the mechanical Fourier synthesizer described by Dayton Miller, see A 32-element harmonic synthesizer. This mechanical system combines the terms of a Fourier approximation of the batman curve found on Wolfram.com. The video below shows this device draws the batman curve.
This article by Jon Hauenstein with me for SIAM News (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics) describes research by Mark Plecnik in the computer-aided design of linkages to provide mechanical movement of a bird’s wing. Here is Mark’s video of the his wing flapping mechanism.
See Epsilon at the 2015 LA Auto Show. This former FSAE racecar is now UCI’s research vehicle for an innovative torque-vectoring electric drive system. The body is by a team at the Art Institute of Orange County.