1. Introduction and Background:

At the start of the semester, we went through the book and looked online for mechanisms we could build that seemed interesting to us. Initially, we landed on a few mechanisms that we found interesting, like a catapult for example, however after talking to professor Deshpande and our TA, we realized that they were simple 3-bar or 4-bar mechanisms. Professor Deshpande advised us to look for a more complex mechanism, so we finally settled on a pick and place mechanism during the latter half of the semester. 

We drew inspiration for our pick and place mechanism from the youtube video seen below. It seemed complex, yet we believed that we could manufacture it. Unfortunately, that was not the case and this mechanism was merely a simulation that worked in an ideal world without friction, something we would later realize during construction. The mechanism shown below is inherently flawed, and for the rest of the semester, we attempted to overcome that flaw, albeit somewhat unsuccessfully. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ6cNk7H-j8