One of my favourite LEGO sets to come out this year was 11019 Bricks and Functions. I was amazed at the number of gear plates (splat gears) that came in this set, and it inspired me to create this fairground ride, sometimes referred to as the Scrambler, or Twister. Continue reading to see it in action and find the instructions.
Cams are one of the basic mechanisms I use frequently when designing models that move. They transfer rotational motion into linear motion and basically consist of a piece rotating around an axle (the cam), and a piece that rests on the cam (the follower). By using cams of different shapes, you can achieve some interesting movement patterns in the follower.
I’m currently working on a model using a cam to make a Seagull move up and down, to give it the impression of flying, and I thought it would be interesting to build a jig to graph the movement of the follower for different cam shapes.
In the video above, I tested 10 different LEGO pieces, and you can see that the resulting movement varied quite a bit. I thought it was really cool to see the movement graphed in this way, to really show how the follower moves over time.
I’m sure there are some other pieces to test, and even combinations of pieces to make more interesting cam shapes. If you have any ideas of other pieces to test, feel free to leave a comment and perhaps it will show up in a future video.