SC17 GateRodders Mechanical NOR Gate

thingiverse

This is a functioning, 3D-print-assembled without supports, mechanical NOR gate created by our Aggregate.Org research group based in the University of Kentucky ECE Department. Our GateRodders concept involves making functionally complete mechanical logic gates that can be used to introduce basic digital logic design concepts in a very concrete way. Although we have experimented with various methods to make mechanical gates (especially designs using marbles), the inspiration for using rod positions to represent logic values came from this video by Baptiste Cavin. A rod at logic 1 extends 5mm forward of the position it has when at logic 0. This use of rods allows complete gates or complex mechanical circuits to be quickly 3D-printed fully assembled, and we have been able to shape the gates like their standard logic symbols. The designs here were used to produce the NOR gates we handed out in our research exhibit at the IEEE/ACM SC17 conference. We expect to post more versions shortly that will be preferable for further use; note that later GateRodder designs might not be interoperable with this first one.