Engineering Projects/StrandBeest/Howard Community College/fall2012/p3-550-ocm

Problem Statement
Build and design a walking strand beast. A walking mechanical machine.

Look through the different designs, formulate a way to fabricate the required parts and build it.

Team Members

 * Osborne
 * Mogren
 * Choudhary

Summary
In the first week of this project we worked on making crank shafts from different materials. We are making a crank shaft from steel and bolts and We are also working on a legos crank shaft. Previous teams have been unsuccessful in making a working crankshaft. After week one we have made one crankshaft that we believe will work. We are moving forward to begin designing and building the legs and body.

Story
Starting out, we had a dilemma, to use the previous groups Lego crank, or redo the work of custom building a crank, such that our design is conformed to the dimensions, or "holey numbers" configured by Theo Jansen as seen here. Currently we are making the new crank out of a different material such that it did not have the bending problem of the previous model.

Some useful videos found here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkV7Bym_qiU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CufN43By79s&feature=em-share_video_user

A successful toy model from kickstarter found >>here<<

A funny hamster powered strandbeest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3iP0NGDDao

Decision List
List all formal decisions made with links to their documentation such as a decision tree or decision matrix.

Material List
Materials- A 3 foot X 1/8 inch by 2/3" inch welded steel bar was purchased at Lowes at a cost of $3.57 2-packages of 4-40 1 1/4 inch bolts with nuts, 10 pieces/each, each package. At a cost of $1.18 each. Various parts from a previous project.

A material needs to be determined for the legs and body of the strandbeest.

For each leg: 7 popsicle sticks

2 long screws of undetermined length ~12mm

2 screws 2mm shorter ~10mm

2 screws 2mm shorter ~8mm

14 washers? presuming washers are used

2 triangles built to specs

6 locking nuts/ 12 regular nuts

Software List
One of the team member used SAI paint tool to render some of the conceptual designs but other than that, there was no software used in this project short of a calculator.

Time
59 hours

Tutorials
''All projects create new tutorials of technical details future participants are going to want to know. They are going to be separate pages that are linked to here.''

Next Steps
The next steps to this project are to complete the prototype and begin working on methods to reduce the friction in the legs so that the beest can walk. Also, testing using a rivot gun to assemble the legs. The design worked on during this project, has 6 sets of legs. After assembling 1 set to the frame and crakshaft it was determined that 6 sets would have too much resistance. A design needs to be created that minimizes friction in the legs. Also another area that could be worked on is a design and method for a one wire design for the crankshaft. A method for bending a small steel wire in a precise manner to create a sturdy and stable crankshaft.