Conclusions and Future Work - JS

Conclusions:

The final prototype of the 5-bar slotted slider mechanism worked as intended, and achieved the design goals established at the start of the project. The key takeaways from the project are:

1. Establish clear goals for the mechanism in order to drive the design process. Having clearly defined objectives ensures the design process is focused and efficient.
2. Initial design and parameter tuning with simulation ensured the design concept met the design goals before manufacturing and assembly began. Rigorous simulation and kinematic analysis must be conducted before initial prototyping to ensure the first prototype will be reasonably close to achieving the design goals.
3. Plan to conduct several refinements and iterations in order to achieve a polished design. The first prototype will not operate perfectly, but assuming focused effort was applied during the simulation and design phase it should generally operate as intended. Thus, refinements and updates will focus on ensuring subsequent prototypes operate smoothly, as opposed to a complete redesign. 

Future Work:

While this prototype operated as intended and met the design goals, there is still room to improve the design. Future work would focus on the following aspects:

1. Replacing the bolts and nuts at the joints with binding post screws, sleeves, and/or bearings to further improve the mechanism's motion.
2. Replace the slotted link with a laser cut, acrylic link as the 3D printed link has a tendency to flex a bit during operation.
3. Driving the mechanism with a powered effort source (such as a PMDC motor) instead of hand cranking. A key design consideration would be determining the masses and moments of inertia for each link, determining how fast the mechanism needs to operate, then selecting a motor that produces sufficient output torque. If such a motor is unavailable, the mechanism might have to be redesigned to accommodate an available motor.