1) Introduction

Karakuri mechanisms are paper models that can move. These mechanisms are purely mechanical and operate solely with mechanical components (e.g., gears, cranks, cams and levers), not electric, pneumatic, or hydraulic components. They are typically created for entertainment purposes.

My project focused on creating a Karakuri model of a “Ready to Fly” penguin, created to mirror the movement of a penguin [1]. This mechanism is powered by a crank that turns a cam and forces the penguin to move. The body of the penguin moves up and down while the wings and feet rotate back and forth. For this project, I performed a kinematic analysis to determine the linear position, velocity, and acceleration of the penguin body and the angular position, velocity, and acceleration of the wings and feet.