Chican@/Indigenous Engineering

Nepanocelotl—the human powered jaguar vehicle—was created to serve as a call to community action. We have invented this vehicle to serve as the anchor of a learning community bringing together UCSB students, faculty, and staff with local high school students and interested members of local Chican@/Latin@/Native American communities.

The goal is to provide a space at the intersection of ancient Mesoamerican culture and modern science education intended to spark interest in both fields of knowledge. Also, by bringing informal science education together with the study of indigenous forms of science, we hope to instigate further research into alterNative approaches to science.

Nepanocelotl’s basic design comes from a random inspiration occurring to Gerardo Aldana while he was a robotics graduate student at UC Irvine. The core idea was to utilize the characteristics of four-bar (4bar) linkages to model animal locomotion. Since 4bar linkages can generate elliptical output motions with only a single input degree of freedom, these linkages make possible the design of a relatively simple mechanism that can mimic an animal walking and can be controlled by a single crank. This innovation lies at the center of Nepanocelotl, and serves as the main constraint for our call to action.

The long(er) term project is to link four 4bar linkages to a single chassis as the ultimate version of Nepanocelotl. As a prototype along the way, we (principally Eric Sandoz (graduate student at UCSB)) have built (in Eric’s garage and in the UCSB machine shop) “half” of the vehicle: two 4bars driving a two-wheeled chassis. (See video clip.) We would like other teams of college students to take up similar projects with the stipulation that use of this design requires the simultaneous development of a community outreach project. That is, as opposed to a “patent” on this invention, we make the design freely available to those who would use it without motivation for economic profit, and with attachment to informal science and cultural community education. Thus, the development of the project seeks to follow the precedent set by other indigenous interactions with modern science.

Students, faculty, staff, and/or community members interested in starting their own Nepanocelotl project may contact Gerardo Aldana for further information.