Entries by Prof. McCarthy

Unified Numbering System for Materials

There are a variety of numbering systems for materials such as steel. The unified numbering system (UNS) uses a letter to designate a material category followed by five numbers constructed from the existing materials designations to coordinate all of these numbering systems. The unified numbering system (UNS) is described in Wikipedia at the link: Unified […]

Comparison of Klann and Jansen leg linkages

Joseph Klann provided a useful comparison of the leg designs for the Mondo Spider and Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest at this (archived) link: http://www.mechanicalspider.com/comparison.html. Here is an excellent web page about the Klann and Jansen leg mechanisms, as well as other leg designs: Dog Feather Designs. This article compares the leg designs:  Mechanical Spider Using Klann […]

Mondo Spider walking machine

This walking machine is known as the Mondo Spider. More information is available at Mondospider.com. The leg of the mondo spider has the topology known as a Stephenson six-bar and is described in US Patent 6,260,862 awarded to Joseph Klann. Access it through the link:https://patents.google.com/patent/US6260862B1/en Wikipedia calls this the Klann linkage which is described here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klann_Linkage

Theo Jansen’s walking machine

Theo Jansen builds amazing walking machines. Each leg is an eight-bar linkage. The Wolfram Demonstration Project models this linkage in a Mathematica notebook. See the link: http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/ATheoJansenWalkingLinkage/   [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/1242383[/vimeo]  

Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing

This is a link to notes on Geometric Design and Tolerancing by Prof. Graeme Britton of Raffles Design Institute, Singapore. A pdf version of Prof. Britton’s lecture is available at: http://synthetica.eng.uci.edu/mechanicaldesign101/GDandT.pdf Here is another excellent set of notes from the Technical College of New Jersey on geometric dimensioning and tolerancing.

2009 Formula SAE California

Here is a link to a facebook album showing the racecars and teams at the 2009 Formula SAE California intercollegiate engineering racecar competition that occurred June 17-21, 2009 at the Auto Club Raceway, Fontana CA. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=89098&id=92647534369