Iteration 1: MotionGen Animation
Before building anything physical, we wanted to understand the link lengths that we would need to produce the desired wheel radius range. This was verified through a MotionGen Animation.
Iteration 2: Mechanism Validation with 3D Prints
Next we printed a singular wheel with 6 of our proposed mechanisms running in parallel. Links were connected with screws and we manually pushed the slider to see that under no loads, our back-driven slider crank mechanism to increase and decrease the wheel radius was working.
Iteration 3: Rack Implementation
After validating the feasibility of our mechanism, we introduced a rack which we manually actuated to adjust the wheel radius. This will eventually be driven by a pinion that is actuated by a servo motor.
Iteration 4: Housing Integration
Here we attached our mechanism to the central housing unit which will sit at the center of the car. This shows us that we can successfully modify the wheel radius while it remains securely attached to the body of the car.