Puzzle Piece Gears
Thus continues the ongoing saga of odd gear shapes I am exploring.
Today's topic is partial gears that can be connected together to make different curvy shapes. It all started when I was trying to make a crescent.

It wasn't really what I was looking for, a proper crescent sill eludes me, but it did inspire me to divide it into sections so that it could be reconfigured.

I quickly realized that more angles would be needed to make more interesting wobbly curves.


After going a little overboard on my subdivision of pieces I realized that I needed ways to connect these parts into more than just a wobbly 'S' and so I tried to design a 3 way connector and a 4 way connector.

I think that they worked fairly well although I realize that I should make spaces for both types of the connections on the connectors. I haven't made any of these yet so I don't know if or how well they work but if I don't find a fatal flaw with the design I will include some, space permitting, in the strange shapes gear set. This design is by no means finalized but I wanted to share, and get any feedback, on this concept, while I'm working on it.
These gears would only be useful for making epitrochoids by rolling another gear around the outside of the shape that the pieces made.
Thank-you for reading,
Aaron
Aaron Bleackley 4-time creator on
That was definitely one of my sources of inspiration during a wild conversation about impossible ideas.
Claire Nordlow on
This reminds me of the configurable track options on kids railroad sets, in case there is any inspiration to be had there...