13. Mechanical Design, Machine Design¶

This week we were assigned to create a machine. We decided to make a talking Zoltar, but with Neil’s face instead of the origional Zoltar. We also wanted him to have his own custom sayings.

Mr Dubick wanted us to have a more “mechanical design” than just using servos and steppers. Little did I know, that was the worst sentence that has been spoken in my life. I knew making an automata was difficult, but I was in for 4 weeks of pure agony.

Group Assignment ¶

Files¶

3d Modeling¶

Motion¶

I was assigned to make the automata bits of the model since I was the most experienced with Fusion 360 in our group. I found this form of motion to be an interesting challenge. I wish I had more time to refine some of the parts but it ended up working in the end.

Torso Rotation¶

This first contraption turns the whole doll from side to side. I originally started with just a sketch and played around with it until I got the motion I wanted.

I then made the sketch 3d, this model ended up being super janky and I didn’t work when I tried to add joints to it.

I decided it was best to start completly from scratch. I was able to get the motion links to work. I was pleased with the design and the motion it gave to I started again to make a completly new design.

When I made this version I thought that I could shrink the design by removing one of the components. I didn’t realise this at the time, but I made a quick return mechanism. This meant that the motion went from smooth to janky. I didn’t notice this until it was too late. As I only tested this model without anythign large to show the movement clearly. It looked good in Fusion and in real life so I stuck with the design, which I now regret.

This final model is what went in the project. The only thing that I didn’t change from the previous design was the gears. Everything else was planned and created to be a much better, more fleshed out version. This was also my first time making a print in place part that I actually cared about which took a few attempts to make. Other notable features are screw holes to mount the machine and a mount for a Nema 17 stepper motor.

With the mount I made for it:

Arms¶

For the arms I didn’t want to use a simple pulley. I wanted to challenge myself a little bit and look for a simple, yet interesting mechanism to control Neil’s arms. After scowering the web I eventually found a really outdated website with cool videos on mechanical mechanisms.