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First, an experiment was conducted to quantify the position and angular velocity profiles of a pan while flipping an egg. In the beginning, we addressed the hypothesis that an egg could be flipped effectively by a pan moving with purely rotation (no translational component) in the design of our experiment. To do this, we fixed a pan to a hinge so it could only rotate and taped a phone to the back running an accelerometer app. Once we found that we could successfully flip an egg, we started recording data and generated angular velocity versus time graphs for six successful flips. In this way, we determined the ideal profile for our final egg-flipping linkage. More information on the experiment setup, data collection, and data analysis can be found in the Wiki here.
With an understanding of the ideal motion profile of the pan link from experimentation, we brainstormed and evaluated possible linkages in MotionGen. After several iterations, the final six bar linkage that accomplished this can be found below. Note the characteristic points in the motion of the rightmost link.
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