The project we built today is the Dogbot. A Dogbot uses many mechanical mechanisms including Belt drives, gear drives, cam drives, levers, and linkages. Two students built the model as a group, then they conducted experiments by using different settings for cam drives, levers structures, and belt drives. The cam drives, levers structures, and belt drives (pulley structures) control the dogbot’s eye motion, the dogbot’s jaw motion, and the dogbot’s tail motion respectively. The STEM information behind this section are the motion transition mechanical mechanisms including belt, gears, and linkages. These are the key components composing the motion transition system of almost all existing mechatronics products in our daily lives.
All students finished the model and experiments with a lot of fun. They enjoyed the class and understand deeper of the key physics concepts behind these important mechanical mechanisms.
