Design Process - krn

There were many design decisions a long the way to make this mechanism. The important mobility considerations were that I wanted the mechanism to slide along smoothly with minimal friction and for rotation at the pin joints. I kept the dimensions and link shapes given in the kinematic diagram so as to stay consistent with the initial mechanism toggle limits. When it came to the actual mechanism, I chose to cut my links out of acrylic since for the given shapes laser cutting would be the most efficient time wise. I also chose to use acrylic as my material since I figured it would be relatively light yet still stiff enough to operate smoothly. I also assumed there would be similar amounts of friction between acrylic and wood. For joints I knew I wanted something thread less to minimize friction, so I used shafts with threaded ends of various sizes.