Engineering Projects/StrandBeest/Howard Community College/spring2012/p2550YFC

Problem Statement
Assemble working StrandBeest and achieve power.

Team Members

 * 9484syoon
 * Brianwcallaghan
 * m'kay m'kay

Summary
The three of us worked on this project during the previous 4 weeks as well. Parts were cut and a design was agreed upon. Still remaining is to settle on a working crank shaft and power the movement with wind or some other means of power.

Story
We began with confidence. Three of us from the previous 4 weeks stayed on the project, so we were all familiar with where we stood. The parts were cut and the overall design was done. In the first 4 weeks, one of us got the numbers right and helped the design and the other made CAD drawings and learned the CNC machine to cut the parts. This go round, without Matt, we split up the work as such. Brian was to build the legs and Soon and Filagot both were to work on the crank shaft. The legs were built over the course of the next 2 weeks. 6 sets of 2. The crank shaft remained a problem. At this time, one member of the team became ill and missed 2 consecutive classes leading up to spring break. When he returned, no progress had been made. This was the last week of the project, so the final result of the 2nd 4 weeks of StrandBeest resulted in the build of 6 leg sets. One team member, who built the legs did experiment with some crank ideas. Here is a video of the experiment which failed. Coat hanger is too flimsy for crank shaft. Last but not least the leg build member made a tutorial on how tho assemble the leg sets. You can find a link below on this page.

Decision List
Decisions were made early on about who would take what role in the process. However, after that communication was poor. As a result, decisions were made independently. Each call in the tutorial was made by Brian Callaghan.

Material List

 * 1) Wooden parts cut on CNC machine
 * 2) Crazy Glue
 * 3) 2 inch cotter pins for backup
 * 4) plactic grommets and pins
 * 5) Drill
 * 6) 1/8 inch drill bit

Software List

 * 1) Picasa 3 was used to make the poster and edit the photos in the tutorial.  Picasa 3 is a free photo editing software that is owned by Google.
 * 2) AutoCAD was used only to open drawings of the parts for reference.

Time
44 hours

Tutorials
The following tutorial shows the step by step assembly of a pair of StrandBeest legs on a single frame that can demonstrate the movement. A later tutorial will show the assembly of these leg sets into a Beest.


 * Leg Assembly Tutorial

Next Steps
The crank shaft is the main obstacle. The rest of the body and legs will have to be built around it, so until we have a design, we are at an impasse. Circles may be the way to go.