2. Design Process (Group 23)

The concept for the initial design consisted of a mechanism with three linkages that would move the pizza cutter back and forth across the pizza. Seeing as how a previous project already designed a three-linkage mechanism, we wanted to try to make a different mechanism that would perform the same task. So, we created a two-linkage mechanism with a slider that would achieve the same task. Additionally, the original idea behind the pizza cutter was to use two motors, one responsible for moving the pizza cutter and the other motor responsible for rotating the plate. We decided to use one motor instead and thus we decided that the Geneva drive was the best way to rotate the pizza while powering the three-bar mechanism.

Early Geneva drive mechanism design:

For the initial prototype, we decided to cut the linkages out of wood and to set up a Geneva drive setup to test it. The final prototype would end up having a larger Geneva drive setup and one linkage system to move a slider that would have a pizza cutting blade attached to it. The slider and the part connecting the pizza cutter to the slider were to be 3D printed for both the initial prototype and the final prototype.