Four Bar Linkage Button Pusher - Fall 2020
Designed a linkage system aimed to push a button for a maximum amount of time
About the project
This project was for my Design 1 class at Carnegie Mellon. We were tasked to design a linkage system that could push a button when one link was rotated. The button would open a fictional martian habitat door. My partner and I ideated many different possible designs and finally landed on the one shown the images and videos below. We initially created hand sketches and performed stress analysis calculations to find failure modes. Then we moved to SolidWorks to better understand the motion and confirm hand calculations.
Motion Study Demo
The video shows how our initial design was intended to move. During our first round of testing, we found that the width of the linkages was too small and the shortest link at the motor sheared immediately under the force of the plate.
After those initial results, we decided to stick with our original design, but to increase the width of the links to prevent mechanical failure.
Failure location from initial test
Final Test Video
This video is from the final experiment where our improved design was put to the test. The wider links worked great and our team had the 2nd longest button push time out of 27 teams!
My favorite part
It was neat to be able to see our design tested especially since this project was done during remote learning due to COVID. Since we weren’t able to test the designs ourselves we only had one test run before the final design was tested, so had to make sure we were submitting our best work.