Introduction & Background - WG

For this project we wanted to create a mechanism that was meant to be an art piece that showed off the kinematics and engineering principles we were learning in class. We decided to create an automata wave generator mechanism that featured a paddleboarder and resembled Lady Bird Lake. 

The wave generator is a series of individual “waves” on a camshaft that has a cam for each wave. Each of the cam profiles are the same but rotated with an offset of 20°. This creates an oscillating motion that will mimic rolling water on the lake.