Zoetrope Design

2019
Teamwork: Tianyu Yu, Gang Yu, Yichen Wang, Yutong Xiang, Yawen Zheng

Advisor: Dan Wu, Hao Tong

MoPanda is a zoetrope that shows an amusing and popular amination of a group of panda bowing. As how a typical zoetrope works, MoPanda uses a rotating disc with a series of frame-by-frame models of panda bowing arranged around, accompanied with a synchronized strobe light, performing tangible 3D animation based on human’s visual residual illusion. The core mechanical structure of the installation includes a specail spendle: a rotating ring on a stationary central axis. We addressed this challenge by designing an extrinsic gear transmission system to actuate the rotating motion.

Contributions:

Team leader of the project.
Mechanical design of the rotating ring on a stationary central axis.
3D modeling of most mechanical parts and assembly in Solidworks.

MoPanda

Photography of MoPanda

Mechanical design of the spindle: a rotating ring on a stationary central axis

The central axis uses two bearings in V-shape orientation to hold the surrounding rotating rings. The rotating ring is connected to the disc holding the frame-by-frame models of panda bowing. The rorating ring is driven by an external gear transmission system. We use a DC motor to drive the gear to rotate.