Cambridge University provides a useful overview of materials properties such as the chart below.
Elastic Modulus v. Density
The tutorial can be accessed at the link:
http://www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/125/now/mfs/tutorial/non_IE/charts.html
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 Mechanism
This is a youtube video prepared by William Thielicke that illustrates the two leg mechanisms.
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 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]
Periodic Table
The National Institute of Standards and Technology provides an on-line periodic table. Access it and other information at the link: Periodic Table
National Institute of Standards and Technology
This is a link to notes on Geometric Design and Tolerancing by Prof. Graeme Britton of Raffles Design Institute, Singapore.
Prof. Britton\’s Notes on GD&T
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.
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
2009 Formula SAE CA
Michael Ashby presents materials information in a practical format in his book Materials Selection in Mechanical Design.
Materials Selection in Mechanical Design
This is a link to lecture notes that give an idea of his approach:
http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/cme/pdfs/443ashbylectures2006.pdf
This 10-bar linkage is designed to drive a scissors movement in order to actuate a deployable structure. It was presented at the 2009 ReMar Conference in London. (UCI Robotics and Automation Lab)
ThomasNet provides a link to a useful white paper on Timing Belt Theory by Gates-Mectrol:
http://www.thomasnet.com/white-papers/abstract/101106/timing-belt-theory.html
Geometric data on timing belt drives can found in the catalog linked to Gates-Mectrol home page:
