Winners websites

[oljomo]

Hi

Congratulations to those that won the awards. Here are the two winners sites, (i know 103s is already up, but i thought id put this up as well).

Team 1137-winners
103-winners

oljomo

[JasJ002]

Thanks a ton for the congrats and I would like to congrat team 1137 on their honorable mention. It's been a great year guys and good luck to all of you next year.

[Daniel Brim]

So, 103, now that you have won the Inventor award, can you share how you did the chains (I asked before entries were due and was told it was a secret).

I knew you would win eventually. Congratulations!

And great job 1137 as well!

[JasJ002]

Connect the chains to eachother like they do in real life. Then make a thin peice of material that follows the path of your chain (I call it a chainer). Constrain the chain using a tangent constraint to the chainer, then a parralel to the side, and hold it in place by using a tangent constraint to the line you see on the chainer when it begins to curve.

[petek]

If you look closely, you can see the "chainer" inside the chain in this shot (oops! It was supposed to be hidden when they made the screenshot.)

Hmm... you can also see that the chain wasn't fully constrained - it's rather lumpy. (Didzis gets 100 lashes with a virtual noodle)

[jdiwnab]

Is the chainer suposed to be virtical (the short side pointing straight out) or horizantal (the short side out to the side)? The pic make it look virtical (but I may be looking at the wrong thing), but the discription seems like it is horizantal. Does it matter? And is there a way to prevent the chain's contraints from flying appart? (The constraints don't want to stay and the come appart, so I stopped using realish chain)

[oljomo]

Hi

Does it move when animated? I used real chain, but it decided to refuse to constrain for no reason at all when i had nearly finished, so i decided to leave it incomplete. When i say for no reason, was doing the same thing as i had for other chains on the bot, but it refused to allow it to work, Has anyone else had this problem? (the only reason i could think was that the assembly got too big to cope with the chain.

oljomo

[Daniel Brim]

So am I correct that nothing is constrained to the sprockets at all (maybe the chainer)? As asked before, do the chains move? Is it possible to get it to move with the sprockets?

Also, can you load a white paper of that assembly or attach a zip? I am having a bit of trouble picturing it, and if I had the assembly I could probably reverse engineer it.

Thanks,
Daniel

[Ein]

I suppose one could consrtrain all the links to the chainer (great idea by the way), the links to each other, and then use a transitional constraint from the links to the sprocket with the chainer as a rail. It would be complex and system taxing to say the least.

[JasJ002]

It's not taxing, in fact it only took me about ten minutes to do the entire drive system chains.

[petek]

Originally Posted by DanielBCR

So am I correct that nothing is constrained to the sprockets at all (maybe the chainer)? As asked before, do the chains move? Is it possible to get it to move with the sprockets?

No, the constraints prevent the chain from moving. I've beaten my head against this (trying to make a constraint-driven chain animation) far too much without success. I did get a short segment (three links, I think) to go all the way around a path, but it locked up on the transition from straight path to curved (at the sprocket) with more links. That was awhile back, and I haven't revisitied the problem with later versions of Inventor, but I doubt that it will work. (That statement should prompt someone to immediately post back with a working model!)

[JasJ002]

I have a little bit of a theory that I've been working on in my head. If you make a work plane from the center of one of the sprockets to the center of another sprocket. Then make a mate constraint from the center point of the gear to the work plane (this will only work with two sprockets being the same size), and then constraint all of the peices of chain together (aka hole constraint) so that they fit together like in real life you should have chain that can rotate along the axis. The only problem with this design is the fact that the sprockets must be the same size and your path has to be straight. Just a theory. Hey if it works you would be the first. Oh and hey pete you were right somebody would figure it out right after you post it.

aka: I love inventor

[JasJ002]

Never mind doesn't work. I tried it this morning.