My War on Pivots

In the phase of engineering I would like to call “brainstorming”, there are many dead-ends one can run one’s head into, not helped by the cornucopia of different strategies, methods, and procedures different people use. There is no one “good way” of doing it, as with many things, it is just what works well for you.

That said, I chose an unorthodox methodology for the abstract nature of this project. Even though I knew well that any design with the central pivot would not work, I went and designed a prototype with it. Off the 3D printer in a matter of hours, I held in my hands the first iteration of the protractor, and it gave me a more concrete platform to jump off of in My War on Pivots.

Caption: The first iteration.

The glaring problem is shown in the angles this design draws. They cannot achieve the pointed tip that an angle should have. The two halves also break apart too easily. But to me, this was the point of this iteration. It allows me to skip large parts of the brainstorming stage and jump straight into iteration. Looking at the exterior arm of the right quarter-circle and holding the prototype in my hands, the solution seemed clear at once—rather than trying to shrink the pivot, why not try enlarging it to the edge of the semicircle?

Caption: Blunt tipped angles drawn from iteration v0.1.

If the pivot were to encompass the entirety of the semicircle, then I can split the inner part of the pivot structure, producing a sharp end without a pivot. After all, what is a pivot but a loop sliding inside another loop?