6. Conclusions and Future Work - IR

While my mechanism was not able to reach the intended result of my analysis, I learned a great deal from building it. One of the main issues of the mechanism was its size and grounding it. The links were very large, creating a problem in weight distribution as the wooden links was not able to support the copper pipe and linear bearings without problems arising. The length of the links also caused difficulty in grounding, since the full rotations of the links would take up a lot of space, meaning the mechanism would have to be spaced out and high enough for the links to rotate without interfering with the grounding elements or the other links. The links were also on different planes, which caused torsion in the wood link that resulted in difficulty in link rotation. 

In the future, I would improve this mechanism by scaling it down and using smaller linear bearings. In addition, I would use rods as pin joints made from metal since the friction of the wood on wood impeded rotation. The copper pipes would be better finished and oiled to allow for easier sliding of the bearings.