Four Bar Chickens in a Pull-the-Tab project to download and make. Pull the tab at the side of the card and the chickens peck alternately at their tasty food!
At the heart of this simple card is the classic four bar linkage mechanism. The four bars being, the horizontal pull tab, the two short vertical links with the final bar being the back of the card
As always members of www.robives.com and paid subscribers to this newsletter can download the file for free at the bottom of this newsletter, thanks for your support! Non members can join in the fun for £2.50 or equivalent here.
Once you have a taste for four bar linkages why not check out these other projects from the website which use the same surprisingly flexible mechanism.
In the Four Bar Kangaroo project one of the bars is replaced by a rotating wheel. The final forth bar is again, the back board
The Four Bar Submarine uses basically the same layout of linkages as the chicken but rotated by ninety degrees. As the lever is moved up and down the submarine raises and lowers below the surface whilst using the geometry of the linkages to remain level. Dive! Dive! Dive!
The Paper Dancer uses a four bar linkage in the base linked to another four bar linkage in the body making this dancing character. As you can see, the four bar linkage is a versatile mechanism that lets you create all kinds of interesting and varied movements, search for “Four bar linkage” on the www.robives.com website to see even more examples.
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