I started thinking about building this stirling engine after the first assignment, and since then I started designing it on SolidWorks and I also did some assignments based on parts that I would need to build the engine. Below there is a rendering of the engine:

 

Then, about 2 weeks ago I started building the engine, and I was surprised how I had no big issues, all the things that I had planned were working as they should, below we have the support for the wheels, and also the part that connects the wheels to the syringes, they have bearings and are reduces the friction to a minimum level.

These parts were critical and I was able to finish them about a week or more before the due date, I started early to have enough time to fix any issue that eventually could happen. In fact I had everything done and everything was working well but I couldn’t finish because I didn’t have the syringes, since everything was working well, I thought that I could get the syringes a day before Monday and I would still be able to finish the engine (if needed). Anyways, I got the syringes by Friday and I started working on the final steps, which is put all small assemblies (shown above) together in a big one. Then I had my first big issue, for some reason the syringes were not going as smooth as they should, to make things clear, they have little or no friction when you use them in the correct angle, but any small change on the direction of the force and they may not even move, since the engine generates little power I had to have the syringes well aligned so they wouldn’t generate any friction, unfortunately, by the time I figured out that that was the problem, and I discovered that the solution could be have a larger support for the syringes it was too late and I couldn’t have a new part.

As a result of that my final engine have tape everywhere, because I tried to use tape to both keep the syringes in the correct position and also to try to align them, I was able to almost make it run after some adjustments, but one of the parts ended up broke, it wasn’t bad I just used more tape since I couldn’t get a new one by Monday, and when that happened I notice that it was better to stop trying to do adjustments because I could end up have a engine that wouldn’t run at all, not even by hand.

The result you can see below:

 

I am disappointed it didn’t work because I was really close to make it work, but at the same time I feel like I learned a lot building this engine, and I also had a lot of fun designing/building each part, until the last moments, when I realized it wouldn’t work by Monday (I guess it would if I had enough time to make adjustments on some parts).

OBS.: the Aluminum foil is just to avoid damage to the syringe, and I don’t think it is classified as a low fidelity material, also, it can be removed, but the life of the syringe will be short.