What topic(s) would you like to see an ebook created for?

Something I am not very good at, but I see some of our E14 members really are, is realising mechanics to create some awesome functions. A few that spring to mind are The Creature from the Crab Nebula Makevember:  An Animatronic Mechanism Crawling Worm Robot #3 : The 3D Printed Version 3D Printed Helping Hands V1 and there are many more great designs I have seen on E14.

An e-book that perhaps helps the following understanding would be great as it would allow more members to explore the fun areas of animatronics/robotics etc:

• basic mechanical 'building blocks' such as how to change rotary to linear motion, scale the range of movement, reverse movement etc
• design software choices
• design philosophy and approaches - perhaps the cardboard mockup stage?
• manufacturing approaches - 3D, CNC, material choices
• tools needed
• actuators, sensors and motors - mounting

"...design software choices..."

This is an area I am interested in as well.

Here are some software applications that I have found people using:

https://blog.rectorsquid.com/linkage-mechanism-designer-and-simulator/

https://solvespace.com/index.pl

Algodoo

https://www.geogebra.org/

Autodesk Inventor / Fusion

Thanks Dave, very much appreciated

"...perhaps the cardboard mockup stage?..."

There is also the old-fashioned way as demonstrated by Tim Hunkin in his Secret Life of Components series:

https://youtu.be/xo1oKkvCQUg?t=1571

(26:10 custom hinges)

Using geometry to work out the centre of rotation for a custom hinge.

beacon_dave  Super helpful reference.  Thanks!

One from Disney Research Studios:

Computational Design of Mechanical Characters - YouTube

Computational Design of Mechanical Characters | Disney Research Studios

I can lose days to the Disney Research Studios, the videos they published on identifying devices based upon capacitive touch blew me away.

I can lose days to the Disney Research Studios, the videos they published on identifying devices based upon capacitive touch blew me away.