Crocodile Death Roll

In the class 2.720 Elements of Mechanical Design, teams design and build tabletop lathes. My team developed a two-spindled lathe to allow for metalworking and woodworking on the same machine.

Named "Crocodile Death Roll" for the animal's move of spinning when attacking prey, my team's lathe could achieve tolerances up to 30 microns with an accuracy of -5 microns with 80% confidence. The class focused on modeling, calculations, and precision design which we used in making our lathe's spindles, cross slide, z drive, tool posts, and belt drive.

With my team, I worked on the calculation, design, sourcing, manufacturing and testing of each of those components. In addition, my role was completing our FEA (finite element analysis) and flexure design. The lathe used flexures on two components: the cross slide and the "dancing monkey," a component of the z drive. Both flexures were designed to constrain movement in certain directions while being flexible in others, preventing over-constraint and binding.

Finally, I also completed much of the team's CAD and design, especially in creating a parametric setup so parts would adapt as we made changes to the design. Our lathe passed all course tests, including rapid material removal, dropping the lathe, and hitting the spindle with a sledgehammer!