High school race teams at Tustin High School and Pacifica High School have completed vehicles that they will enter in the 2012 Energy Invitational at Adams Motorsports Park. These vehicles were presented and reviewed at the 2012 Youth Expo at the Orange County Fairgrounds on April 13. As a result of their quality work these teams have been invited to join this years Energy Invitational.
Tustin HS race team
Pacifica HS race team
CSULA vehicle
CSULA will bring their FSAE race car to the May 20, 2012 Energy Invitational at the Adam’s Motorsports Park in Riverside, CA. For more information…
Here is a photograph of the CSULA race team.
CSULA team
UCDavis Hybrid
UC Davis will travel south to join in the May 20, 2012 Energy Invitational. Their hybrid race car was designed to compete at the FSAE Hybrid competition in New Hampshire.
Here is a photograph of the UC Davis race team.
UCDavis Team
UCLA vehicle
UCLA’s supermileage vehicle will race on May 20, 2012 as part of the 2012 Energy Invitational at Adam’s Motorsports Park. Select this link for more information…
This is a photograph of some of the members of UCLA’s race team.
UCLA Team
Type “mechanism” or “robotics” into google.com and the first items to appear are Wikipedia articles. In fact, chances are that any technical term in mechanisms and robotics, such as “machine,” “gear,” or “inverse kinematics,” will yield Wikipedia articles on the first page.
Internet marketers work hard to achieve first page rankings in Google’s search algorithm using techniques known as search engine optimization (SEO). In response Google regularly revises its algorithm to reduce the presence of web-sites that have poor content but high rankings, a sign of effective SEO. (1) A revision introduced in early 2011 seems to like Wikipedia.
When teaching, I check to see what my students find on-line with search terms like “four-bar linkage” and “mechanical advantage,” even “screw theory” and “quaternions.” Last year I became so frustrated with the poor quality of the articles appearing at the top of my searches, that on May 27, 2011 I created a user account and entered Wikipedia as a novice editor.
I am approaching one year and 3,800 edits on over 60 articles on Wikipedia. While I could not repair everything that I felt was wrong or misleading, I am claiming success, because the culture of Wikipedia imposes limits on what can be done.
This experience has sharpened my appreciation for the challenge of managing information on the Internet. Before I get to this, let me share some advice regarding the world that is Wikipedia.
Please contact me if you would like to join us at the 2012 UCI Energy Invitational.
Our Mechanism Generator 3.0 software reads a SolidWorks sketch of a planar 3R chain that reaches five task positions and computes a set of Watt 1 six-bar linkages that approximate movement through the task positions within specified tolerances. An animation previewer shows how each linkage moves. Select one and MechGen 3 generates a solid model of the linkage.
This is more excellent work from the team of Alex Arredondo and Kastubh Sonawale.
**Update: This video has been revised to provide a preview at the beginning that shows the six-bar linkage that is designed using MechGen 3.
We have a trial version of our Mechanism Generator 2.0 software available. MechGen 2 reads five task positions of a moving part in SolidWorks and generates a set of linkages that approximate the positions within specified tolerances. An animation previewer shows how each linkage moves. Select one and MechGen 2 generates the solid model of the linkage.
This is the result of excellent work by Alex Arredondo and Kaustubh Sonawale.
This video demonstrates the operation of MechGen 2:
Happy holidays and have a happy new year!
This site has photographs of a large number of devices used to teach physics. It is fascinating.
Select the link: http://physics.kenyon.edu/EarlyApparatus/index.html