Making Things Move reveals practical mechanical design principles to readers who may have no background in engineering and shows how to apply those principles through a wide range of sample projects, from art installations to toys to labor-saving devices.
This book is for anyone who has ever wanted to make something that moves but didn't know where to start. Maybe you're a sculptor who wants your artwork to spin around on a pedestal, or a musician who wants to make custom musical instruments that come alive. Whatever the case may be, this book will show you how to turn your ideas into reality.
Makers no longer need to have a machine shop in their garage or an arsenal of spare parts lying around. You can make 3D models using free software, then actually get them printed in 3D at any number of online shops. Heck, you can even make your own 3D printer! Or cut just about any 2D shape you want out of a variety of materials at Ponoko. Combine these with off the shelf parts and simple hand tools and the possibilities are endless.
A unique guide to practical mechanical design principles and their applications In Making Things Move, you'll learn how to build moving mechanisms through non-technical explanations, examples, and do-it-yourself projects--from art installations to toys to labor-saving devices. The projects include a drawing machine, a mini wind turbine, a mousetrap powered car, and more, but the applications of the examples are limited only by your imagination. A breadth of topics is covered ranging from how to attach couplers and shafts to a motor, to converting between rotary and linear motion.
Each chapter features photographs, drawings, and screenshots of the components and systems involved. Emphasis is placed on using off-the-shelf components whenever possible, and most projects also use readily available metals, plastics, wood, and cardboard, as well as accessible fabrication techniques such as laser cutting. Small projects in each chapter are designed to engage you in applying the material in the chapter at hand. Later in the book, more involved projects incorporate material from several chapters.
Making Things Move
- Focuses on practical applications and results, not abstract engineering theories
- Contains more than a dozen topic-focused projects and three large-scale projects incorporating lessons from the whole book
- Features shopping lists and guides to off-the-shelf components for the projects
- Incorporates discussions of new fabrication techniques such as laser cutting and 3D printing, and how you can gain access
- Includes online component for continuing education with the book's companion website and blog (makingthingsmove.com)
Hands-on coverage of moving mechanisms Introduction to Mechanisms and Machines; Materials and Where to Find Them; Screwed or Glued? On Fastening and Joining Parts; Forces, Friction and Torque (Oh My); Mechanical and Electrical Power, Work, and Energy; Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Motor? - Creating and Controlling Motion; The Guts: Bearings, Bushings. Couplers, and Gears; Rotary vs. Linear Motion; Automatons and Mechanical Toys; Making Things and Getting Them Made; Projects
