Spirographs for Mechanical and Electrical Engineering

Mathy Name: Trochoidal Dynamics & Signal Synthesis

Name for Normal People:  Spirographs for Electrical and Mechanical Engineering

Highly Suggested (but not required) tools:

Full Page Gear Set by Wild Gears or alternative provider.  $73 when this page was first created.

They have smaller less expensive gear sets available.

Colored pencils, pens, drawing chalk, or even crayons.

You might need additional hoops and gears for your capstone project.  A list of other options available on their website when this page was first created are as follows:

All large gear sets are the same size, 40 cm x 40 cm (~15.75 inches x 15.75 inches).

Each gear set explores a theme and packs as much into the gear set as possible.

• Full Page gear set:  Designed to be used as a first gear set.  Can stand alone or be combined with other gear sets for more options.  Is designed to fill a standard pieces of A4 or letter paper as full as possible with a big design.

• Plentiful gear set:  Its like the Full Page gear set page 2.  All the gears that would have made it into the Full Page gear set if there was more space.  These add more variety and depth to design possibilities.

• Enormous gear set:  Explores the theme of larger designs.  The frame has a 360 cutout (36.5 cm diameter), 2 hoops, and a 280 tooth gear as well as other smaller gears.   Big pieces to make big designs.

• Enormous Hoops gear set:  Continues the theme established by the Hoops gear set this gear set has nested hoops from 168 all the way up to 360.  Adds a lot of hoop and ring sizes for huge increase in design variety.

• Strange Shapes gear set: A large collection of non-circular gears.  Primarily triangles and squares of many sizes and designs, but also some odder shapes.

• Strange Shapes 2: Stranger Shapes gear set:  Further explores the non-circular gear space with some more medium sized pieces, but also a huge star shape, and a huge spiral piece.

• Oval gear set:  Oval gears are a further variation on the kinds of non-circular gears that can be made.  These fun round lumpy friends make for good gears and useful rings.

• Oval 2 gear set:  Further additions to the oval gear family adding even more variety.

• The 120 gear set:  An exploration of the 120 gear.  One 120 gear with more pen holes than ever before, and 7 variations on the 120 gear each with different cutouts.  This gear set is primarily for exploring gear-in-gear designs with the 120 giving lots of middle gear options.

• Nested Oblong gear set:  Enables exploration of complex compound design creation through the use of hoops of specific size in oblong gear cutouts.  Advanced technique; not hard to understand, but lots of room for exploration and mastery.

• Modular gear set:  Puzzle piece gear tracks enable the creation of custom wobbly shapes to roll gears in or around.

• Full & Plentiful Hoops gear set:  A collection of the gear sizes chosen in the Full Page gear set and the Plentiful gear set remixed into a collection of hoops.  A nice companion set once you have a collection of gears to use in the hoops.  Also a good companion to the Nested Oblong gear set.

• Mammoth gear set:  The biggest gear set.  4 large gear set sheets connect together to make rings and hoops up to 70 cm in diameter.  Truly huge designs are possible.  Also a 360 tooth gear, also in 4 parts.

• Mammoth 2: Modular Compatible gear set:  Similar to the Mammoth gear set this is a collection of 4 sheets, each has a set of 1/4 circles of hoops.  These hoops are sized to be compatible with other modular parts.

• Double Dense gear set:  A collection of gears with more dense pen holes for more dense and intense composition possibilities.  

• Doubling Enormous gear set:  A 360 gear with lots of cutouts that share many common factors making them 1/2, 1/3, and other simple fractions the size of the gear that they are cut out of.  This enables exploration of gear-in-gear designs called butterflies where surprising and simple shapes emerge. 

• Modified Enormous gear set:  Similar to the Doubling Enormous gear set this one has a 360 cutout, 2 hoops, and a 288 gear with 144, 72, and 36 cutouts for similar gear-in-gear design possibilities.

• Mandala Maker gear set:  Designed to enable the rotation of a ring around a center point, as well as the shifting of the ring along the radius from the center point.  This allows for large circular compositions of small designs.

• Modular Oblong gear set:  Inspired by the Nested Oblong gear set this one has all the part to make oblongs of custom height and length so that any hoop can be used to make that style of composition.

• Shapes Hoops gear set:  A collection of medium sized non-circular shapes each of which has several variations of cutouts applied to them.

• The Kitchen Sink gear set:  A collection of nested hoops, medium sized gears, and interesting cutouts on some gears this set expands the general tool kit.

• Paisley gear set:  A collection of paisley or shooting star shaped pieces and gears to match for exploring gear-gear designs with odd shapes.

• Square gear set:   Larger non-circular gears and an exploration of non-circular hoop shapes.

• Encyclopedic 2: 31-90 gear set:  A continuation of the themes started in the Encyclopedic gear set, extended to larger gears, with lots more options fitting into the space.

• Rack Shapes gear set:  These non-circular gears have linear rack gear sides which means that they don't roll well but they make for interesting rings and hoops.

• Multi-Dens Non-Circular gear set:  A collection of medium size (~120 tooth) non-circular gears, with high density pen fans.

• Oblong Hoops gear set:  Two nested sets of oblong shapes that are sized so that they work with the hoops from the Hoops gear set.  Works like the Nested Oblong gear set, but with more options for the size of the oblong.

• Extra Long Oblong Hoops gear set:  A revision of the Oblong Hoops gear set that lengthens the parts from 40 cm to 60 cm.  This doubles the length of the linear portion of the oblongs from 20 cm to 40 cm. (this gear set is larger than the standard 40 cm x 40 cm size)

• Oblong Enormous Hoops gear set:  Like the Oblong Hoops gear set except this one is 60 cm long and made to work with the Enormous Hoops gear set.  (this gear set is larger than the standard 40 cm x 40 cm size)

• Encyclopedic 3: 91-170 gear set:  A continuation of the themes started in the Encyclopedic and Encyclopedic 2 gear sets, extended to larger gears, with lots more options fitting into the space.  This gear set is a bundle that includes 14 large gear set sheets of gears.