WEEK #4

I wanted to try out some "mechanism engineering" using last week servo motor experience. I thought about the mechanism of a engine's piston. Unintentionally I made it more complicated by creating 2 symmetrical 2d piston and using the 2 opposite branches of the servo. 

I had to simulate the movement of this mechanism in my mind and then on the paper to think about a design and then calculate all of the moving parts' dimensions in order to make it work properly.

After some sketches, I drew this mechanism on Illustrator in order to get vectors that I can laser cut.

Once the cutting was done, I assembled everything, powered the servo and controlled it with the Arduino program from last week. 

I should have put some margins on the moving parts because sometimes the mechanism doesn't work very well, the paperclip arm can't go far enough to follow the rotation of the servo.