Project Inspiration:
Our mechanism is inspired by the artwork “Can’t Help Myself” by Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, or better known as the bleeding robot. This robot is perpetually leaking oil into a growing pool around itself and must continuously reach out and sweep the oil back towards itself in order to continue functioning. Figure 1.1 shows a GIF of the artwork for better understanding.
...
Figure 1.1. GIF of “Can’t Help Myself”
Initial Concept Planning:
The concept for our robot is to perform a similar function of sweeping a liquid back into itself. Unlike the artwork which rotates a full 360 degrees, our mechanism will only operate in a single plane. The end effector will follow a semi-circular path, which can be seen in Figure 1.2, and will have a non-constant velocity profile. We will use the mechanism’s design to create the velocity profile of the end effector rather than using different driving motor speeds.
...