Conclusions and Future Work - Carly

Conclusions:

Through completing this project, I gained a better understanding of how to design mechanisms with a specific position, velocity, and/or acceleration profile output. I got to apply ,my experience designing physical systems with the analysis tools I have learned throughout this course to calculate the position, speed, and velocity of each joint and linkage. My final mechanism assembly reached my design goals since it translated a constant rotational input into a variable speed and acceleration output slider. I am happy with the outcome of the mechanism, as the pin joints rotated smoothly with bearings and the slot slid relatively smoothly as well. 

Future Work:

The final mechanism assembly could be improved in a number of ways. The two base plates could have been separated with stand offs instead of nuts. These stand-offs would have guaranteed a constant width between the plates more so than the nuts, whose distance was measured with calipers, but the distance still varied slightly enough to cause the mechanism to bind up a few times. I would also improve the slider joints, both on the fixed pin joint and the output slider by adding linear bearings. Both of these potential improvements were not possible in the scope of this class because I did not anticipate these challenges until it was too late to order more parts.