Here’s how to make a steerable
motorized 3-wheeled vehicle using the SketchyPhysics plugin for
Google Sketchup.
- Make a box and lift it in
the vertical (blue) direction.
- Add two boxes to hold the
back wheels. Copy the first box (Ctrl+Move) to make the second.
- Make a third copy of the
box and move it to the front centre. This box will be attached
to the steerable wheel.
- Add a servo on top of the
steerable box with the servo's axis pointing vertically up.
- Make the servo, the top
box, the two back boxes BUT NOT THE STEERABLE BOX into a group.
The steerable box has to be able to turn independently of the
main group.
- Add wheels to the bottom
edge of each of the three small boxes. The front wheel should
not quite touch the top box so that it does not rub against it.
- Now use the joint
connector to connect the servo to the front box. Click the
servo then hold down the Ctrl key and click the front box.
- SAVE YOUR WORK then
add a solid floor and test your animation. The servo should work
but the vehicle is not yet motorized...
- Select the front hinge and
open the User Interface (UI). Set the accel and damp values to
20 to give a motor effect...
- Test your animation.
Let's replace the front hinge
with a motor joint - this will allow us to adjust the motor's speed
during the animation.
- Select the front hinge and
delete it. Replace it with a motor joint.
- Use the joint connector
to connect the motor joint to the front box (select the motor
then Ctrl-click the front box).
- Does your vehicle go
backwards? If so then use the UI to change the accel value of
the motor from 1 to -1.
- SAVE YOUR WORK!
- Test your animation.

Check out the 6.5
minute video below! It's even available in HD if you click the HD
button, and you can download it from
www.vimeo.com if you want!
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