Novel mechanical mechanisms for the development of undergraduate knowledge

Although MIT Students have been taught an enormous amount of theory and design, they are not exposed to simple machine elements and designs from the past. As a result, students often spend time reinventing things when the answers have been already developed. This project focuses on presenting students with designs from the past that are useful, novel and make the student think. This agenda is one that is being approached by a number of others. In particular, there are the Clark Collection at the Museum of Science and KMODDL (Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library), an online resource containing both photographs and video of models and 3D printing templates, all aiming to make this knowledge more accessible to a wider group of people. The goal of the present work is to create a more easily understood set of models that can be made inexpensively and can be produced around the world. The models included in this collection focus on four main themes: pulleys, gears, ratchets and mechanisms that convert rotary to linear motion. By using consistent coloring to act as a legend, educational descriptions that accompany the models to provide context, and a simple design to allow for fabrication using a laser cutter, the educational goals of the project were executed and met. The models are more easily understood and cost a fraction of the amount to fabricate as those made with a 3D printer while being more robust and visually pleasing.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Stern, Michael L., S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Barbara Hughey.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/52811

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/52811