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.
2016 Energy Invitational
Fourier Curve Tracing
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.
SIAM News
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.
Epsilon is ready
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.
Heart Linkage
This mechanical system was designed by Yang Liu to trace the shape of a heart. The work is inspired by the mechanical 32-element harmonic synthesizer described by Dayton Miller in the 1916 article in the Journal of the Franklin Institute.
Folding Bicycle
Michael Sutherland and his team at Zennen Engineering designed this full-size folding bicycle that has a dramatically different folding action from current designs.
Zennen Engineering has a new concept that they are kind enough to say was inspired by our UCI Folding Structure. This new design rotates the rear wheel support around the bottom bracket, and folds the front forks against the down tube and seat tube to form a compact package. It is a unique movement.
Jon Stokes, in our Robotics and Automation Lab, helped by adding the four-bar function generator to combine the two folding actions. It is a great concept, and it will be interesting to see if it achieves commercial success.
Montague Bikes provides a popular line folding full sized bicycles, which fold sideways around the seat tube.
Target Profiles for Morphing Linkage
Lawrence Funke and Prof. James Schmiedeler of the University of Notre Dame Locomotion and Biomechanics Lab show that the movement of a morphing linkage through its target profiles can be improved by coordinating actuation of the sub-chains. This was presented at the Mechanisms and Robotics Conference which was part of the 2015 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, August 2-5, in Boston, MA. The video below shows the improvement obtained by moving from 1 to 3 coordinated actuators.
A research team including Profs. GimSong Soh, Kristin Wood and Kevin Otto at Robotics Innovation Lab at the Singapore University of Technology and Design has developed a rolling robot about the size of a baseball. The design and motion planning of this robot, Virgo 2.0, was presented at the Mechanisms and Robotics Conference which was part of the 2015 ASME Design Engineering Technical Conferences, August 2-5, in Boston, MA. A demonstration of the Virgo 2.0 moving through a figure eight path around obstacles is shown in the video below.
Prof. Andrew Murray and his team at the Design of Innovative Machines Laboratory have developed a dynamic extrusion die that changes shape while in operation. This provides a new capability for rapid manufacture of innovative geometry for metal and plastic bars, channels, hoses, and more. For more information see his laboratory website, University of Dayton DIMLab.
This video provides an extreme introduction to the DIM Lab at the University of Dayton.
Nicholas Bodley sent me to www.maritime.org for information about the MK.1 mechanical computer that he used as a Navy Fire Control Technician during the Korean War. Just the schematic of its operation is a dizzying flowchart.
A description of the mechanical components of this computer system can be found in the manual Basic Fire Control Mechanisms (62.7MB). It is an excellent description of the use gears, cams and linkages for computation.
MK 1 Mechanical Computer
