Obstacles

The previous mechanism we used for ideation appeared very mechanical and inorganic when looking at other views besides the top. In order to solve that, we are considering the use of chains to mimic a jelly-like fluid movement. We still used the rack and pinion mechanism from before, however we decided to take a new approach as to what would be shown above the base.

Building Up from Previous Ideas

What we came up was a bike chain being pulled by the leg gears that can extend and retract. Like our first initial idea of having a shaft pull at fabric, gears pull on the chains. We are considering to have one gear drive these chains. *The chain was also extremely challenging to make on Solidworks. (Thanks Ronald!)

Through prototypes in this direction, we decided to pursue in working with a bike chain sculpture. To us, we found aesthetic appeal in a moving chain that changes accordingly to our inputs. But with using this, we have to use a strong material for our gears so it doesn't break or wear out easily.

Before building our physical prototype, we had many things to consider problems that may occur. One was that we weren't sure how our motors would control each individual leg as needed. We thought about multiple solutions like having elastic bands to pull back the leg if another was stretched. In the end, we settled on controlling each limb's movement using one universal rotating motor that drives all the smaller gears.