Alex Hanneman - Bradfield School is studying engineering and posted a photo album for his design for a can crusher.
http://communities.ptc.com/photos/4089
Several schools have enquired about the mechanism and animation tools in Creo so I created a model that uses them. The attached Zip contains the Creo 2.0 Academic Edition assembly and a video output from the Animation.
After creating the parts the base part was assembled using a default assembly constraint so that it cannot move. The other parts were assembled using pin and slider mechanism constraints. Two snapshots were created, one with the lever raised(Open) and the other with it lowered(closed).
Under the Applications tab, the Animation module was opened and a new key frame sequence created. Three key frames were added with an Open snapshot at 0 seconds, a Closed snapshot at 5 seconds and another Open snapshot at 10 seconds. The timeline was edited to be 11 seconds creating a one second pause when playback is looped.
The animation has to be run in creation mode before switching to Playback mode where the sequence can be saved as an MPG with or without render applied. Here is the video - http://communities.ptc.com/videos/4000
More advanced tools in Creo allow us to analyse the magnitude and direction of the forces in the assembly as it operates (Mechanism dynamics) and the stresses in components (Creo Simulate). This would help remove material in low stress areas and reinforce areas of high stress.
Middle and high students and teachers can access online multimedia tutorials in Precision LMS for Schools. These show in detail how to use the techniques described here. https://plms4schools.ptc.com/precisionlms/app/home
