Dan Grayber’s Mechanisms are Autonomous Artworks
Dan Grayber’s mechanisms are autonomous artworks that defy gravity.
mechanism
Attaching Motors (and Attaching to Motors)
Recently, we’ve been messing about with motors and gears at Pemtech. Students in one of my classes are building an underwater ROV, and we don’t have any decent propellers. Rather than shop for them, we’re fabbing our own with the laser cutter and Makerbot. Earlier this week, Jett worked out the proper dimensions to fit a plate to a motor shaft. He did this by measuring out a range of holes and then cutting them in quarter inch acrlyic. Once they came out of the laser, he tried pushing the motor into each of the holes until he found the ‘goldilocks fit.’ Once we had a plate, he used the same process to cut a series of holes in the plate that could be threaded with M3 screws. This setup allows us to attach anything to a motor.
Cool pop-up paper display
This video from the awesome British toy store Grand Illusions demonstrates a cool collapsing mechanism, which involves only paper and elastic bands, and allows a rigid display to be set up in about a second and easily folded away again for storage. The French company that makes these is called Marin’s. (Beware, their site is […]
Watt’s linkage and possible app in rapid prototyping hardware
As Primus tells us: “Jerry was a race car driver.” Jeri Ellsworth was both a race car driver and a race car designer. In this segment from a Fat Man & Circuit Girl episode, she talks about the concept behind Watt’s linkages she used in a rear suspension system she designed and how this mechanical […]
Round-up of gear-making books
Automata artist Dug North has posted a round-up of books related to gear-making and is looking for suggestions for others. After seeing the beautiful use of gears in Bill Durovchic’s kinetic sculpture, I started looking for books on gears. The following books all look good and get great ratings from Amazon’s vast customer base. Additional […]
Creepy crawler
via miters This looks like fun. Nice project. University of Louisiana News has a decent interview with Dr. Terrence Chambers, and student Don Tamosaitis. The design draws on the work of Theo Jansen. The crawler travels about 2-3 miles/hour. There were five of us working on it, there was a lot of 3D modeling of […]
Paper gears with CraftRobo
Thanks Lass! Have you tried CraftRobo? Could you do something similar to this by hand? How would you do the design work to make gears and other mechanisms? What software would you use? Add your ideas to the comments, and contribute your photos and video to the MAKE Flickr pool.
