Traditional Dragon Automoton

thingiverse

This is an automaton design of a traditional Chinese dragon flying under two arches. Before putting together the assembly, you'll need to create a little dragon out of clay and colors of your choice. While creating this design my partner and I ran into some difficulty with the the cams and having them being able to work in order for the dragon to rotate on the axis, before you begin anything you'll want to apply sandpaper around the circumference of cam F and a circle of sandpaper onto the surface of cam E. You'll also may need to cut or sand down some of the parts in order for everything to fit together nicely. Assembly: After your parts have been printed, lay duplicated parts next to each other. Part B & D as well as Part A & C are identical pieces, arrange A & C so that they are vertical and that the shorter distance between the edge and the hole is closest to the table. Fit the pieces together using Parts B & D Put crank I into the side of the box and slide cam F from the inside of the box before putting it through the other side. Snap Part L to secure crank J in between A & C after adjusting Cam E and crank J to the center. Snap Circle G onto Part B or D and onto the edges that isn’t puzzled together by A or C. Snap one side of the arches onto smaller circle H and the other side onto circle G so circle H is in the center and there is room for crank J to spin around. And finally, super glue the dragon onto the top crank J. Yay! Version 1 v. Version 2 After assembling version 1, we noticed that the cams would not hold each other like intended, and so created a part that would clasps around the main cam and would also fit in between Side A and C. We also decided that the little house in the center would be taking too much from the dragon and put the effort from the house into designing the arches to be more defined and detailed. The fillets that would hold together the main circle to side B or D was also raised for it to be more secured along the side. A third piece was added that would better hold the clay dragon without it wobbling back and forth.