Archive for Mechanisms category:

Hand Crank Drum Machine


Published on May 6th, 2010
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After a long “battle” with Hobby King, the motors and propellers that Neil Hickey and I ordered for our blimp never showed. We went our separate ways in our mechanisms finals. After some thinking and due to the influence of my past as well as seeing EJ Park’s Mechanical Storytelling, I came up with the [...]

Final Proposal – BlimpsYo!


Published on April 12th, 2010
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Mechanisms Final Proposal Blimps Yo! Mike Cohen & Neil Hickey

Free Body Diagram of a Hi-Hat


Published on March 28th, 2010
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For whatever reason, the first thing I thought of when asked to make a free body diagram was a hi-hat. Without a foot on the pedal, it’s a fairly simple diagram. Weight down, the spring inside pulling up. With a foot on the pedal, the forces become a little more complex. Looking at the top [...]

Trials and Tribulations and Eventual Success


Published on February 18th, 2010
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The Mouse Trap car was an assignment I had in my freshman year in undergrad. The problem with this is that I wound up leaving early that semester and completely missing out on it. Now was my chance to redeem myself. Scott and I discussed various ways to make use of the mouse trap’s power [...]

Lego my Swing-o


Published on February 4th, 2010
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Kody and I decided on making the Carnival Swing for our Lego project. After going through almost every box of Legos we just barely got the swing put together. It seemed like a good example of minimum constraint design…but we sort of had to improvise a bit.