T-800 Robotic Arm Crane
- Award Winning Solidworks Model
Destruction To Construction
For my solidworks project I have chosen the terminator because it is a machine of great complexity and dynamics. I have decided to look at the complexities of the terminators arm and especially the hand.
I decided to turn a hand of destruction into an arm of construction. By using solidworks I have successfully modeled the arm of the T-800 terminator as a construction crane on a stable tripod. This "crane" is designed for the purpose of building large objects as if you yourself were building a small model. I have used solidworks to model and more importantly invent this crane. I have had to design the complexities of the hand and details of the arm, and completely design the tripod and crane extension.
Theoretically; all joints, hydraulics and discs move and articulate, although I have had to fix some aspects of the model due to solidworks disrupting arrangements at ball joints.
The hardest part I found was to create the ball joints but like a lot of the model I have created these using the tools; revolve and revolve cut. Other parts such as the upper arm strut and the crane strut I have used the loft, extrude cut and extrude tools. Every edge on every part has also been filleted to provide smooth renders and with some fillets being 0.01mm radius and there being over 110 parts in the hand alone this proved to be a difficult job.
Let There Be Life
All of the joints, hydraulics and disks move and articulate, so essentially the crane can mimic a human arm in all aspects including an opposable thumb. The tripod can rotate and tilt so that the crane can theoretically move to any angle. As an added extra the legs can be adjusted like a camera tripod to suit the terrain it stands upon.
A Hand of Construction
The Hand Is made up of about 113 separate parts and fully moves to mimic any position and more of the human hand. This was made possible by the use of inter-phalangeal hydraulic cylinders and pistons controlling each digit. Each digit is joined to the wrist via ball joints and sockets. And the thumb was made opposable via a large ball joint at the joint to the hand.
Wired
Every digit and also the wrist have been stamped with circuitry and the main arm has a built-in computer. These are to control the complexities of the movement involved in the crane and hand. The computer can be accessed through the rubber panels on the upper arm strut.