Custom Worm Gearbox

Dr. Robert Hengeveld at the Grenfell Campus School of Fine Arts developed a cable driven animatronic moose head for an art exhibit. The designed cable pulley actuators were inadequate to actuate the mechanical arm driving the motion of the moose head.

I was contracted to design and manufacture 5 units of a custom gearbox driven by a stepper motor.

Project Contributions:
- Conducted kinematic analysis on mechanical arm to determine torque required by the driver pulley
-Designed a custom gearbox using Autodesk Inventor and CNC machined all the components needed for the gearbox housing.
-Sourced stepper motors of adequate torque to drive the gearbox
-Conducted FEA analysis on loadbearing components like shafts and bearing housings
- Programmed an Arduino Mega to provide step pulses to drive the stepper motors