For my midterm, I decided to use the 131st mechanical movement. It mainly involves turning circular movement into linear movement using a fork-like object with teeth on the ends. I used Adobe Illustrator to begin planning out how I would create the movement and to laser cut all of the components. For the linear movement, I decided to make different kinds of attachments that were instead on the inside of the horizontal slide.

I spent some time brainstorming what the movement would do specifically, and I decided to add an electrical component to my project and have the movement flip on a switch and turn on a light.

I thought of different things that could be turned on, and going completely out of the box and getting creative, I thought of a lightbulb. Stemming from the lightbulb idea, I thought it would be cool to have a lightbulb turn on as if someone was having an idea. Googling images of people having an idea that I could laser cut and add to my project, I saw this image.
Then, I got the idea that I could also add gears to the thinking man in my project, and make it seem as if turning the movement was causing the person to ‘think’ and have an idea through gears turning.

I started with two cardboard prototypes, which only involved the main movement. IMG_4034-16o4vt0Once I knew that I could get the basic movement to work, I moved onto higher fidelity prototypes that involved the thinking man and attachments.

I laser cut two high fidelity prototypes.This is the most advanced of the two. In the first higher fidelity prototype, I only focused on creating the gears and making sure the linear movement would hit the switch. In the second high fidelity prototype, I added in the circuit, which includes three LEDs in parallel, a switch, and a 3V battery. For the final product, I decided to make a steel stand that attached onto the back. After many hours at the plasma cutter and after learning how to bend metal, I was able to make a stand. I also used the angle grinder to finish it and sandblasted to give it a clean finish. 

I laser cut the components again and taped over the wood to get a clean finish. I also decided to make the thinking man out of black acrylic to make it look more like a silhouette. I added arrows so that the user would know how which way to turn the wheel in order to turn on the lightbulb. I had to test out many different kinds of glues in order to connect the acrylic to the wood, and then ended up just using screws to attach the thinking man and the lightbulb.

This is the finished product.Most of the components are made of wood, there are acrylic attachments on most of the dowels to make the gears run smoothly. The circuit is in the back, mostly invisible from the front. The rest of the components are either made of acrylic or aluminum.

Integration proved difficult, as there are many moving components, but it runs smoothly if turned quickly.

This is a video of it working with the light turned on and off. IMG_4503-1e10iag

Estimating how much it would cost to build, I had to think of materials, tool usage, and cost of labor.

I used a sheet of 30×20 in. 1/4 in. thick Plywood. A 4×8 ft 1/4 in. thick sheet of Plywood at Home Depot costs $21.12, so $2.75. I used about 10 square inches of 1/4 in. thick acrylic. A 4×8 1/4 in. clear thick sheet of acrylic at Home Depot costs $118, so $3.57. A 4×8 black sheet of acrylic at Home Depot costs $153.28, and I used about 16 square inches, so $11.54. Lastly, I used about 20 square inches of 1/8 in. aluminum to make the stand. A 12 by 12 in sheet of aluminum costs $7.85 on buymetal.com, so $1.43.

For the electrical components, I had LEDs, wires, a switch, and a battery. I had three LEDs, and at LED Supply, each white LED costs $0.49, so $1.47. At RadioShack, a spool of 30 gauge wire costs $5.00. A roller switch costs $1.50 at RadioShack. A 3V battery pack at Target costs $2.99.

As for machine time and cost of labor, the machine time usage for the laser cutter can be calculated by the cost of a membership for a workshop.The membership for a laser cutter is $120 per month. This equates to about $3.43 per hour. I used the laser cutter for about two hours, so $6.86.

Lastly, I used the table saw, the router, and the laser cutter. The machine time usage for these can be calculated by the cost of a membership for a workshop. The cost is $125 per month. This equates to about $3.67 per hour. I used the machines for about four hours, so this would cost $14.68.

Lastly, for labor cost, I would pay myself $40 an hour since I created a custom design with several moving parts. I worked on the design and laser cutting for about 30 hours, so $1,200.

In all, this cost $1,246.49 in total.

A special thanks to my friend Dani who told me it would be cheesy to make a thinking man with a lightbulb light up over him.