Oscar Alonso replaced the parallelogram drive linkages of the three-panel Volve C70 hardtop convertible with quadrilateral linkages, so it deploys farther and stows more compactly. The wheelbase of this vehicle approaches that of the Mercedes CL500. He used our Mathematica linkage synthesis notebook and our Mechanism Generator add-in for SolidWorks.
This video shows a kinetic sculpture of a horse by the artist Francois Hameury.
His website is http://hameury.sculptures.pagesperso-orange.fr/index.htm
Here is something new. Our Mathematica notebook can find defect-free spherical four-bar linkages that guide a body through five orientations in a tolerance zone near a specified set of task orientations.
Geometric Design of Linkages, second edition
I am pleased to say that the second edition of my book, Geometric Design of Linkages, is now available, and I have to express my sincere gratitude to my co-author GimSong Soh, who helped make it happen.
You can find more information at the Springer Verlag web-page, GDL on Springer.com.
It is also already on Google Books, you can see it at the link GDL on books.google.com.
This shows the operation of our Mathematica notebook for five-position synthesis of a four-bar linkage. The link to download and try this notebook is on our Linkage Synthesis page.
This is a draft of my editorial on 21st Century Kinematics for the Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics. It is a follow-up to my previous editorial on Kinematics, Polynomials and Computers. I would welcome your feedback.
UCI Energy Invitational
The 2011 UCI Energy Invitational will be at Willow Springs International Motorsports Park on March 22-23, 2011. The Streets of Willow Springs will be set up with a highway, autocross and staged idle sections to challenge the energy usage of all types of vehicles. How far can your vehicle travel in an hour on this course using only $1.00 of energy? Please contact me if you are interested.
Select this link to the .pdf of Kinematics, Polynomials, and Computers–A Brief History, which is a summary of the history of the kinematics of mechanisms and robotics with a focus on the challenge of solving the polynomial equations that arise in their study. It is a draft of my February 2011 editorial for the ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics.
***Update*** This version has a correction to references [29] and [30].
This is a video on Yahoo! that shows the movement of the Convertible Hard Top of the Peugeot 407. The two side rails fold out from the back, and provide guides for the glass panels that move out to become the top.
Mathematica File for Linkage Synthesis
Select this link to download our Mathematica notebook for four-bar linkage synthesis. It will download as a textfile, so delete the .txt extension, then Mathematica should be able to read it. If you have an problems, please contact me.
This notebook is an example of the type of programs that I use to teach mechanism theory. In my courses students generate their own notebooks like this for the analysis and synthesis of various linkages. The program is not optimized in any way.
This particular notebook does provide a new capability. It uses a randomized search in tolerance zones near the required task positions to find linkages that do not have well-known defects. Cut and paste the text file output into our Mechanism Generator software to automatically generate a SolidWorks model of the linkage and task.