Our first mission on day #1 of our build-a-bird project was to sketch five potential flapping mechanisms. My two partners and I set to work, but after about 30 seconds of sketching on paper, we decided we would rather sketch in 3-D and quickly headed over to the Lego table to start building.
Our first idea was inspired by the Delrin model shown to us as an example of converting rotational motion to forward motion.
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| Delrin Inspiration |
We decided that if we made two similar models, but with gears instead of normal circles, each could represent one 'wing.' Our hope was that when connected by the gears, the two 'wings' (Delrin rods) would move together to simulate a flapping motion. Since we had not sketched our idea beforehand, and therefore had nothing but a picture in our minds, it took us a little while and some trial and error to build this model. We started with one 'wing,' built the other, and then had to figure out how to build a supportive base. We were very happy with our finished product--when we turned the crank the 'wings' moved with a relatively smooth motion. Since their location was completely dependent on the position of the gear, no part of this model's flapping motion was dependent on gravity.
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| "Sketch" #1 |
Our first model in action:
In our next model, we left the idea of gears behind and experimented with cams--oblong round discs that create motion when rotated. We decided this second model would be our bottom-up approach, and built it so that the cams would push up on the two 'wings,' and gravity would bring them back down.
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| "Sketch" #2 |
For our third model, we approached our challenge from a different direction (literally), going from a bottom-up to a top-down approach:
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| "Sketch" #3 |
In this model, the wings are spaced at such a distance that they rise when something of the correct size pushes them from above, and then are brought back down by gravity. We used a small Lego piece to push the wings up and down to test our model, but our full sketch 'vision' was to use a mechanism like the Delrin example that had inspired our first sketch to convert rotational motion to forward motion. Our idea was to give the mechanism stability by attaching it to our base, so that ultimately turning the crank (which would be located on the bird's 'head') would cause the bird's 'wings' to move.
Our third model in action:
We finished the day with three 3-D sketches, excited to eventually make one of our birds fly.
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| Our avian family |
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