Sorry this is late! I had completed this drawing so early that I had forgotten to upload it. Kind of like reverse procrastination.

Anyways… this is my 2D Adobe Illustrator Drawing Project! For my template, I chose the “Flywheel and Governor Machine.” Below is a picture of how it works – you spin the contraption around a rod, and the masses on the outside gain rotational kinetic energy, which is then translated to potential energy as central disk rises. Pretty cool stuff. I did a problem set on these in MECH 211. Less cool.

 

 

Below is the original drawing. I attempted to use Adobe LiveScan on this. However, the results were TERRIBLE. An absolute failure. No matter what I did, I could not get rid of the grid lines while preserving the integrity of the actual forms.

With this, I decided to ditch LiveTrace completely and hand draw all of my forms. I was able to replicate them pretty accurately, with the exception of a few minute aesthetic curves in the original sketch that did not affect the performance of the mechanism. Below is my completed drawing:

What I learned from this project was really valuable: how to make shapes that can be recognized by the laser cutter and cut out, and how to use Adobe Illustrator/LiveTrace in an applicable manner to prototype and fabricate ideas.