Kinematic Synthesis | Page 3 | Mechanical Design 101

Four-legged Mechanical Walkers: Teams 2, 4 and 5

December 13, 2019/by Prof. McCarthy

Here are videos of the designs for the four legged mechanical walkers obtained by Teams 2, 4 an 5. This is the final project in my Fall 2019 Kinematic Synthesis course.

Team 2

Mechanical Walker Team 2

Team 4

Mechanical Walker Team 4

Team 5

Mechanical Walker Team 5

MDA

Four Legged Mechanical Walker: Teams 1, 3 and 6

December 8, 2019/by Prof. McCarthy

Here are videos of the designs for the four legged mechanical walkers obtained by Teams 1, 3 an 6. This is the final project in my Fall 2019 Kinematic Synthesis course.

Team 1

Mechanical Walker designed by Team 1.

Team 3

Mechanical Walker designed by Team 3

Team 6

Mechanical Walker designed by Team 6.

Halloween Display 2019

November 2, 2019/by Prof. McCarthy

This video shows how the linkage systems moving spooky decorations designed by my six student teams were combined into a Halloween display.

Students in my MAE 245 Advanced Kinematic Synthesis class have designed Halloween decorations using a four-bar linkage by itself or in combination with a parallelogram or pantograph linkage. You can see the work of teams 1, 2 and 3 in the video.

Mechanical Walker Project Animations: Spring 2019

June 6, 2019/by Prof. McCarthy

Here are the solid models of some of the walkers designed by UC Irvine students in my Spring 2019 course MAE 183 Kinematic Synthesis of Mechanisms.

Walker Group 1

Walker Group 2

Walker Group 4

Walker Group 6

Walker Group 8

Walker Group 9

Walker Group 10

Leg Mechanism for a Mechanical Walker

May 23, 2019/by Prof. McCarthy

This is an animation of the leg mechanism for a mechanical walker designed using function generators to drive the hip and knee joints. A second parallelogram linkage is used to construct a translating leg that allows placement of the foot trajectory where ever the designer chooses.

Construction for Three-Position Synthesis of a Four-Bar Linkage

May 15, 2019/by Prof. McCarthy

The graphical construction of a four-bar function generator that coordinates three input and three output angles is presented in the video below. It is possible to coordinate as many as five input-output angles, but this requires numerical calculations using software like our MechGen FG iOS application.

More notes on Kinematic Synthesis Also see my book Kinematic Synthesis of Mechanisms: a project based approach

Five Position Synthesis of Four-bar Function Generators

May 12, 2019/by Prof. McCarthy

Our MechGen FG iOS application provides five position synthesis for four-bar linkages. A Demo of the iPad version is provided here. It is also available on the iPhone.

Construction for Two-Position Synthesis of a Four-Bar Linkage

May 11, 2019/by Prof. McCarthy

The graphical construction of a four-bar linkage that coordinates two positions of an input crank with two positions of an output crank is presented in this video using Geogebra.

A linkage that coordinates the values of input and output angles is called a function generator. It is possible to design a four-bar linkage to coordinate as many as five input and output angles. However, this requires numerical calculations using software such as our MechGen FG iOS application.