Gear Prototyping

As I've been prototyping some versions of gears this past week, I've come across a problem. It's a fairly simple and solvable problem, but one we must address before the model build. As the gears currently turn, they mesh perfectly and each of them rotate about poles to stabilize their movement; as is, it works fine. However, two of the gears need to have the poles rotate with them, meaning that instead of fixing the poles to the box, they need to be attached to the gears. This will force us to create instead a platform to stabilize the gears. If we put holes in this platform for the poles, the poles can remain stabilized and rotate freely with the gears, thus solving the problem. It is also possible that we utilize either ball bearings or some other form of lubricant to allow the poles to spin with relative ease so as to not cause friction against the bottom of the box. This, of course, depends on how easy it already is to spin the poles, and this step may not be necessary if low friction is in place already.

Brendan