I have made a considerable amount of progress and am now ready to start manufacturing parts for my design. I have modeled the belt and sprocket that I need to move the bottom gear. I added 3D printed bearings into my design to eliminate friction at the pivots. I also added the crank to the model.
My question to you all: Should I have this piece fully enclosed and have an acrylic viewing window of just the spirals, or should it stay open so you can see the gears?
I have an opinion on your gears. I think it would be cool to add an extra gear that combines all 3 of them when you spin them with the 3 primary colors (Red, Blue and yellow) and you would get more combinations of colors when the teeth and/or spirals combine.
I agree with what was said in class about the viewing window being unnecessary for the audience of this school. Opinion: you could have more gears and maybe even have two cranks so the top and bottom spirals can be turned at different rates.
I think you should make the acrylic viewing window! I think it would look cool
I think that seeing the mechanism is very cool, so you should not have an acrylic viewing window for just the spirals. Opinion: it might be really cool to have the entire thing behind an acrylic window with the handle above it, that way the project would be more protected.
I think having an acrylic window could work or even just putting the piece in a wooden box with one side open could also add an interesting aesthetic. depending on how much time you want to invest It could be interesting to have a wooden box with a hinged acrylic window.
I would prefer leaving the whole project open because I think the look of the gears and seeing them turn is really satisfying. My question is, how effective are the ball bearings? I tried printing them years ago and failed spectacularly lol.
Creating an optical illusion is definitely a unique and challenging idea. A lot of illusions can be very finicky, so its cool you decided to do one. I think it could be interesting to have it covered in the front, to make the illusion stand out more, but clear in the back, so people can see how it works
I think you should keep it open, but creating a shadow box type of frame would be really cool!
Opinion: I really like the vibes of the counter rotating spirals!
As an Engineer, I love seeing how things work. Therefore, it is my opinion you should keep everything visible, and because we are at WPI I believe there will be more people with this opinion.
My question to you is what software you used to develop the drawings, it looks unfamiliar to me.