Kinetic Sculpture - Welcome to Hell

About

Challenged to make a kinetic sculpture using a variety of mechanisms for the fourth and final project of my Mechanical Prototyping class, my team and I built a visual representation of our telling of the classic myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The orginal myth had the lovers sneaking back out of the Underworld, only for Orpheus to betray the trust of the relationship, turning to look at Eurydice, dooming her to an eternity with Hades. In the sculpture we dipict something similiar however instead of being pulled back into the Underworld, Eurydice falls to Cerberus' gnashing jaws below.
With everyone on the team being past their first-year, we all came in wanting to explore and I feel we did in this scultpure. Most notably were wanting to convey story and my personal interest in playing with material usage. The first point was addressed in our decision to include Cerberus and the cliff in the scene. This way the viewer's eye naturally starts at the top, falls with Eurydice, and ends on our largest show piece of Cerberus. These inclusion also made the story more engaging for younger audiences, with the imposing beast that is Cerberus being much more tangible than being trapped for eternity. The interest for materials and a unique look came through in the fianl, shadow theater feel to the scene as well as having the use of cloth to diffuse lighting and the back wall being made of a dirt composite to make it look like a cave.
Beyond our own learning goals, we were also required to have several mechanisms. These were:

Chain/Belt Drive - Power transmission between Eurdyice slot slider and motor shaft.
4 Bar Linkage - Cerberus pawing at the clif
Slot Slider - Dropping of Eurydice
Cam & Follower - Each head of Cerberus is a distinct cam for a different motion (2 nodding, 1 gnashing)
A set of gears - Power transmission between motor shaft and Cerberus drive shaft

All to be driven off a single 12V DC motor.

I mainly contributed to the design of the housing and box for all the mechanisms as well as the aesthetics. Learning form the last project I made an effort for it to be easily assemblable and allowing for work on the mechanisms without disassembly of the box or awkward maneuvering.

As this was for a class, a more in depth report can be found here.

Skills

Solidworks - Design, animation, and rendering was done in Solidworks
Shopbot - Used to cut plywood for the main box
FDM Printing - Used to print basic brackets
CNC Plasma Cutter - Used to cut sheet metal for gussets and small metal parts
Illustrator - Decomposed image into vector traces to be used as sketches in Solidworks