This is the first of a series of videos prepared by Robert “Smitty” Smith and Prof. McCarthy on Racecar Engineering. They were recovered recently and I hope to get them all on-line in the coming weeks. This first video is an overview of all the topics that will be covered and provides a good introduction […]
The explosions had stopped for good, I believed. It had been an hour since I’d heard any noise at all. I carefully picked my way up along the steep transport track to the top of the cliff. It was nearly dawn, but a full moon had risen and to the west the sky was still […]
Benjamin Liu prepared this animation of the flapping wing mechanism designed by Peter Wang. It controls both the swing and the pitch of the wing to improve aerodynamics in hovering flight. This is the Youtube version of the animation. The youku version for our Chinese colleagues is available at the link: Hummingbird Linkage.
Here is an example of our Bezier curve drawing linkages. The first draws Yang Liu’s first name in cursive. Rather than show the linkages all at once, they are separated so it is easier to see the curves that they draw. Also shown here is the linkage that draws the a cursive version of the […]
Our trip through China concluded at a conference and workshop at Changzhou University. This video highlights the Changzhou conference on innovation in Robotics and Intelligent Manufacturing, the beauty of the city of Changzhou, and a rainy night in Shanghai. Our colleagues in China can see this video on YouKu at: Design Research in China: Changzhou
Yang Liu has developed Bezier linkages that trace trigonometric Bezier curves. In this video he shows that he can design these linkages to draw his name in cursive. This is a demonstration of the colloquial description of Kempe’s Universality Theorem, which says “there is a linkage that signs your name,” described by William Thurston. See […]
The Digital Mechanism and Gear Library has a terrific collection of mechanism models, animations and books as well as links to other collections around the world. Select this link DMB-LIB.org. The Mechanism Description page has a long list of items, every one of which opens to a large number of interesting mechanism systems:
This is the third of five videos highlighting design research across China. This captures the beauty of Dalian, a city on the Yellow sea, and the excellent research in precision machine design by colleagues and their students at Dalian University of Technology. Here is a link to this video on Youku for our colleagues in […]
This video of our visit to Xi’an captures the beauty of the city and its surroundings, as well as the personality of the excellent professors and students at Xidian University. For our colleagues in China, here is a link to a Youku version of this video: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTg2MzQ5NDI4MA==.html
Yang Liu and Peter Yang designed and built this physical prototype of our Trifolium mechanism. It is fabricated from ABS using the Stratasys Fortus system in UCI’s Institute for Design and Manufacturing Innovation. Our Chinese colleagues can view this video on Youku at the link: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMTg2MzQ2MjE5Mg==.html