research-article

Computational design of wind-up toys

Authors:

Niloy J. MitraAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG), Volume 36, Issue 6

Article No.: 238, Pages 1 - 13

https://doi.org/10.1145/3130800.3130808

Published: 20 November 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Wind-up toys are mechanical assemblies that perform intriguing motions driven by a simple spring motor. Due to the limited motor force and small body size, wind-up toys often employ higher pair joints of less frictional contacts and connector parts of nontrivial shapes to transfer motions. These unique characteristics make them hard to design and fabricate as compared to other automata. This paper presents a computational system to aid the design of wind-up toys, focusing on constructing a compact internal wind-up mechanism to realize user-requested part motions. Our key contributions include an analytical modeling of a wide variety of elemental mechanisms found in common wind-up toys, including their geometry and kinematics, conceptual design of wind-up mechanisms by computing motion transfer trees to realize the requested part motions, automatic construction of wind-up mechanisms by connecting multiple elemental mechanisms, and an optimization on the part and joint geometry with an objective of compacting the mechanism, reducing its weight, and avoiding collision. We use our system to design wind-up toys of various forms, fabricate a number of them using 3D printing, and show the functionality of various results.

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Cited By

Ge JZhou MBao WXu HFu C(2024)Creating LEGO Figurines from Single ImagesACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/365816743:4(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3658167
Gomathi NRajathi K(2023)Adaptive path planning for unknown environment monitoringJournal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments10.3233/AIS-220175(1-28)Online publication date: 31-Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.3233/AIS-220175
Maloisel GSchumacher CKnoop EGrandia RBächer M(2023)Optimal Design of Robotic Character KinematicsACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/361840442:6(1-15)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3618404
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Index Terms

Computational design of wind-up toys
1. Applied computing
  1. Operations research
    1. Computer-aided manufacturing
2. Computing methodologies
  1. Computer graphics
    1. Shape modeling

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Published In

cover image ACM Transactions on Graphics

ACM Transactions on Graphics Volume 36, Issue 6

December 2017

973 pages

ISSN:0730-0301

EISSN:1557-7368

DOI:10.1145/3130800

Editor:
Kavita Bala

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Copyright © 2017 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 20 November 2017

Published in TOG Volume 36, Issue 6

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Cited By

Ge JZhou MBao WXu HFu C(2024)Creating LEGO Figurines from Single ImagesACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/365816743:4(1-16)Online publication date: 19-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3658167
Gomathi NRajathi K(2023)Adaptive path planning for unknown environment monitoringJournal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environments10.3233/AIS-220175(1-28)Online publication date: 31-Jul-2023
https://doi.org/10.3233/AIS-220175
Maloisel GSchumacher CKnoop EGrandia RBächer M(2023)Optimal Design of Robotic Character KinematicsACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/361840442:6(1-15)Online publication date: 5-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3618404
He LSu XPeng HLipton JFroehlich J(2022)Kinergy: Creating 3D Printable Motion using Embedded Kinetic EnergyProceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3526113.3545636(1-15)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3526113.3545636
Liu YBelousov BFunk NChalvatzaki GPeters JTessmann O(2022)Auto(mated)nomous AssemblyTrends on Construction in the Digital Era10.1007/978-3-031-20241-4_12(167-181)Online publication date: 20-Nov-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20241-4_12
Zhu CLi TMohideen MHu PGupta RRamakrishna SLiu Y(2021)Realization of Circular Economy of 3D Printed Plastics: A ReviewPolymers10.3390/polym1305074413:5(744)Online publication date: 27-Feb-2021
https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13050744
Cheng YSun YSong PLiu L(2021)Spatial-temporal motion control via composite cam-follower mechanismsACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/3478513.348047740:6(1-15)Online publication date: 10-Dec-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478513.3480477
Abdullah MSommerfeld RSeidel LNoack JZhang RRoumen TBaudisch P(2021)Roadkill: Nesting Laser-Cut Objects for Fast AssemblyThe 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3472749.3474799(972-984)Online publication date: 10-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472749.3474799
Huber SPoranne RCoros S(2021)Designing actuation systems for animatronic figures via globally optimal discrete searchACM Transactions on Graphics10.1145/3450626.345986740:4(1-10)Online publication date: 19-Jul-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3450626.3459867
Wang JZhang XLu GFu JXiao JZhang X(2021)Kineticist: Kinetic Sculpture Design Using Multilevel SkeletonsIEEE Computer Graphics and Applications10.1109/MCG.2020.297254041:5(113-123)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/MCG.2020.2972540
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