Trying to model anActuated Tensegruty module

Hello, i'm trying to model a small module allready modeled by andrew payne:

http://www.liftarchitects.com/journal/2007/2/22/adaptive-tensegrity...

However I can't get it to move, can someone offer some insight please ?

What i'm doing:

making the points of the module at normal conditions,

making the lines that will be the compressive members and making them springs with large stiffness ( 5000),

making the center line and having a slider to shorten the length for the module to move while animating

making the other lines in the bottom and top plane that will serve as tensile members of the tensegrity and giving them a smaller stiffness ( about ? )

But when start the animation and starting messing with the slider to shorten the middel member it does not move.

Any help is greatly appreciated !

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on March 3, 2011 at 2:14pm

Hi Carlo,

The main problem here was just that the model was very small, and the tolerance set high, so all points of the model were getting combined into 1.

Also, this tensegrity module as it is doesn't have anything stopping the 2 triangles twisting relative to each other, so as you'll see it is very flexible, but that's more of a design issue.

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