Kinetic Sculptures.

Introduction to Mechanical Prototyping.

Introduction to Mechanical Prototyping serves as the first time many students are exposed to mechanical design. The class goes through the basics of structures, fasteners, and joints before throwing students into two projects where they design and build kinetic sculptures in teams of 4-5.

For our first sculptures, our teams were tasked with designing nautically themed sculptures that were powered using an electric motor. These sculptures were also required to include at least three methods of power transmission, and be made primarily of machined components. Our main structure was two clock-cage boxes where the motor and gearbox lay. Head and tail of the fish are bent, punched brass brazed together at the seams. The body achieves a waving motion using 5 plates, each attached to a rotating shaft using telescoping tubes with their anchor points offset by 15 degrees. The tail achieves a back and forth motion using a 4-bar linkage driven by an electric motor.

For our second sculptures, we were tasked with creating wind powered sculptures that represented a specific branch of Engineering. These sculptures were going to be primarily constructed using sheet metal, with limited 3D printing and machined parts. Our sculpture represents Electrical Engineering; The center piece of our design is a large water-jet sheet of aluminium with a faux PCB stenciled on. The center piece is bent at the edges and riveted together to ensure rigidity. The main housing is two large bent steel pieces bolted together. These pieces are primed and painted to ensure they did not corrode while placed outside. Sitting atop the sculpture is a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) that was optimized typical wind speeds in Needham, MA. This turbine connects to a thick wire with a representation of a battery and resistor attached to it through a reduction gearbox. This gearbox ensures that even in low wind speeds our items can spin while also preventing them from spinning too fast in high winds.