The idea to automate simple tasks is very common today. We decided to design a mechanism for dealing cards based on concepts learned in class. This mechanism allows the user to turn a crank and deal cards to multiple different people. For our design, we used the following guidelines:
- Only one input drives the motion
- The mechanism deals to four people
- Only one card leaves with every forward movement of the prong, meaning no clusters of cards come out of the holder
- The mechanism needs to compensate for a diminishing stack of cards (i.e. mechanism doesn't fail once half the deck has been dealt)
The primary movement of the mechanism will stem from a four bar crank-rocker. We plan to rotate the crank in a full 360 motion which will allow for the rocker-coupler joint to tracer a specific profile. The cards will be released along this profile.
The dealing of the cards is achieved with a slider-crank. The cranking motion is provided by a gear train that connects the rotation of the crank-rocker crank shaft to the slider crank shaft; this means that both shafts rotate with only one input and this is what drives the mechanism. Attached to the slider is a custom 3D printed piece that pushes the cards, one at a time, out of the card holder.
Figure 1: Final CAD assembly
Video 1: A MATLAB simulation of the rocking mechanism with the used link lengths