Hello everyone! This is the project in which we each select one of the 507 mechanical movements and recreate one using Adobe Illustrator. I chose movement 113 (Figure 1). I picked this one because it changes linear motion into rotational motion (or vise versa), which I think is really cool (and I might want to incorporate that into a project later in the semester).
Figure 1. movement 113
I started off by searching YouTube for the best way to use AI to make a gear. Here is the method I ened up using:
- use the star tool to make a star with the same number of points as the number of teeth you want the gear to have (15 in this case)
- use the ellipse tool, while holding shift+alt, to create a circle in the center of the star that extend out to where you want the base of the teeth to be
- use the pathfinder tool to “intersect” the star and circle, so that they go from looking like Figure 2 to looking like Figure 3
Figure 2. star and circle before “intersect” tool
Figure 3. shape made after applying “intersect” to star and ellipse
4. Next, I wanted to make the space between the teeth flat rather than pointed, so I added yet another circle in the center and used the “unite” button under pathfinder. (Figures 4 and 5)
Figure 4. before fixing the sections between the teeth
Figure 5. after fixing the sections between the teeth
Yay! Gear! The next step is to add the linear section with teeth.
First I used the rectangle tool to create a four-sided shape that fit in between the teeth. I started off making only half this shape, then copying it (Figure 6), reflecting across the vertical axis, and finally joining the two halves together (Figure 7). I did this so that the left and right sides would be identical mirror images.
Figure 6. two halves of the future linear teeth
Figure 7. a shape to become the teeth of the linear section
After this, I created a larger rectangle that would become the linear segment. I measured the outside edge of the gear’s teeth to be 0.2 inches, so I decided to space the linear segment’s teeth out every 0.2 inches. The end result looked like Figure 8.
Figure 8. teeth added to linear segment
After adding some additional detail to the center of the gear, I arrived at my final product, as shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9. final depiction of Mechanical Movement 113
