Study On The Mechanism And Appearance Design Of A Single-driven Quadruped Horse

Appearance design plays an important role in the product design. With the development of individual demand, appearance design has attracted more and more attention of the designers, and this has motivated researchers to conduct intensive study. However, it is always the relentless pursuit of designers to achieve an ideal combination of the aesthetics of industrial design and the mechanical functionality of products.Taking the design of a single-driven quadruped horse as the example, this study attempts to balance the industrial design and mechanical design, so that to explore a new design method by which the appearance and the functionality of products can be integrated.Based on the methodology of appearance design of industrial products, two types of technology, viz. virtual prototype and computer-aided industrial design were applied to the design of the mechanical horse in the present project.Through the methodology of appearance design, the form change of the product was controlled and the appearance of the mechanical horse was also evaluated. In summary, the main research work done in the project includes:First, a four-legged mechanical structure driven by a single power source was designed based on the “Theo Jansen mechanism”. In the work, the appearance design theories related to material, colour and form etc. were taken into account. The applications of the theories were analyzed and then a set of specific appearance designs for the mechanical horse were proposed.Second, from the theory of mechanical design and ADAMAS simulation, the critical factors that affect the appearance design of the mechanical horse were extracted and analyzed comprehensively. The analyses were then used to optimize the appearance design. The best proposal was chosen after its feasibility was evaluated and its correctness was verified.Third, in terms of advantages and disadvantages, the final design of the mechanical horse was assessed by means of the evaluation system of appearance design. The goodness-of-fit between the design and the actual requirement was also checked.