Conclusions and Future Work - SF

As a whole, I believe my mechanism achieved the design goals I set out for it. While the movement could have been smoother, and the control systems more elegant, I think the figures it drew were interesting enough, and the customization options were plentiful. However, I also believe there are plenty of ways to improve the mechanism. For example, an obvious upgrade would be to replace the gears between the shafts and the motors with an actual timing belt and pulley system. A second motor shield could be added, enabling more precise control over the speed of the DC motor. Steel driveshafts could be used in place of the wooden dowels for the driveshafts, thus greatly increasing the robustness of the mechanism. The list goes on. One aspect of the project I also thought was interesting and challenging was the MATLAB program I wrote to simulate the action of the mechanism. Seeing the plot created by my final prototype recreated in the MATLAB simulation proved to be immensely satisfying. It was also gratifying to see how changing the different variables had an instant effect on the performance of the mechanism. Overall, I thought this project was a cool and challenging, and very enjoyable.