Welcome back to our blog! This week we covered operating principles and mechanism designs. In this topic, we delved deeper into how to make our products move and become "living" objects!
There are 6 main mechanisms to produce functional prototypes:
1 - Actuators
- Stored energy is converted into motion
- Usually this stored energy refers to compressed air, electrical supply or liquid pressure.
- 3 main types separate the actuators: Electric, Pneumatic and Hydraulic.
2 - Cams
- A shaft is rotated and pieces could be sliding or rotating on the shaft. These pieces would convert the shaft's rotation to simple or complex reciprocating linear motion.
- Cogs transmit torque and help adjust rotational velocity.
- There are many types of gears, yet the most often used are spur and bevel gears
- Uses a pivot point to transmit and amplify force
- Usually input and output are in opposite ends of the pivot
5 - Ratchets
- Locks in one direction
- Used for tightening without need to go the other direction
6 - Springs
- Uses stored energy to transfer as motion
- Common types include compression and extension springs
After learning about these 6 mechanisms, we were tasked to apply it by designing a ping pong ball launcher. Here is our design:
Thank you for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment