This project centered on designing and building a gear reduction system using spur gears. I was responsible for the pinion gear and both idle gears, working through the mathematics of involute curve geometry to ensure proper tooth meshing across the full gear train.
To bring the system to life, I used 3D printing and laser cutting — the printed gears were mounted to a stepper motor, and the laser-cut base provided a rigid platform to hold the assembly and the Mario character in place.
The stepper motor moves 200 steps per rotation. The goal was to have the final output gear complete exactly ¼ rotation in those 200 steps, translating to a 90-degree positional change. When the program runs, Mario first moves counterclockwise to a defined home position at the left-most edge of the base. The motor then transitions to clockwise rotation, and Mario "jumps" onto a platform 90 degrees from the starting point.
