4. Manufacturing and Assembly - WCC

Simplicity in design choices and overall cost is the greatest influence in the choice of manufacturing for an at-home process. Therefore, items such as plywood, 2” x 4” wooden boards, nuts, bolts, and L-brackets were chosen. For the links, plywood was cut in rectangular pieces with a circular saw and reciprocating saw.

The rectangular piece was then chamfered on both ends, and had holes drilled in the center for the bolts to connect with. The slider itself was built with a piece of 2” x 4” with plywood extenders nailed to each side. The entire link assembly (disassembled and assembled) is shown below.

Due to the bolt heads, some of the links were unable to fully rotate a full 360°. Therefore, in the connections between the links, either several washers or a nut was placed such that the bolt head would not interfere. All links can freely rotate 360° due to this. Duct tape was also placed onto both sides of the slot for the slotted link to allow less friction between the slotted link and the pin from the housing.

For the housing, 2” x 4” sections were used for the rigid walls, the flooring, and the pin connection for the slotted link, while plywood was used for the motor housing and to ensure the rigid walls were parallel to each other. They were all connected using a series of L-brackets connected to the floor, and nails for the plywood section. The pin itself is a 4” lag screw with a washer on either side of the slotted link to ensure smooth translational movement.

The duct-taped section of the rigid wall happened from running out 2” x 4”, and is unimportant as the slider does not reach this section. Originally, the entire mechanism was designed to stand upright.

But, the weight of the slider and links puts too much stress on the slotted link and therefore was altered to where the mechanism is laid on the ground (the plywood extenders were added after this decision, such that it slides properly on top of the 2” x 4” rigid walls).