Gang Sines

Inspiration

We've all had to graph sine curves or other non-circle items before. For us, it was in high school math classes but for others around the world, depending on your profession, you might have to graph economic modles, data from experimentation, or charts displaying your customer base over time. We thought about how perfect a standard compass could draw a circle and wondered if there was a way to translate that precision to less precise objects.

What it does

Thus we ended up designing a mechanical "wave" compass that can draw perfect sine/cosine/whatever wave you want in an ergonomic and simple to use fashion.

How we built it

We had access to a 3D printer and used SolidWorks to make the models for all of our prints. We also used Cura to turn our models into files our 3D printer could process and print. We were not able to get a fully working prototype created in time due to one piece taking too long to print and causing an error. However, we have finished designs for all individual parts.

Challenges we ran into

Designing the gears (and legit everything else on SolidWorks). Also, for some time, we had issues with the 3D printer and its operations so we struggled to get it up and running (error messages for certain parts).

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Creating finalized, detailed designs for all necessary parts.The gears in particular required a lot of research, so it was rewarding to finally have unique parts tailored to our design needs. Based on this stage of our work, all that is needed is printing out remaining parts (far easier than finishing designs in our opinion).

What we learned

How to cooperate and deal with issues in machinery, poorly designed software (cough Solidworks glitches cough), and staying awake. Learned how to use SolidWorks and Fusion 360 although we ended up ditching Fusion. Also happened to learn a heck of a lot about miter gears!

What's next for Gang Sines

Printing out and assembling the parts. Hopefully we can figure out a way to make our device/more devices even more functional by allowing them to draw a variety of different shapes or allow the user to customize the shape of the gang "sine" (amplitude, wavelength, etc.).