AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS Minutes Mechanisms Committee September 12, 1994 Minneapolis, MN Members Present: J. T. R. E. R.

Angeles Chase Cipra Fichter Freeman

D. H. G. G. C.

Kohli Lipkin Lovell Pennock Reinholtz

B. Thompson L.W. Tsai J. Wiederrich G. Wiens J. Davidson (ex officio) CALL TO ORDER The meeting was called to order by Chairman Tom Chase at 7:35 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis. OLD BUSINESS Approval of Minutes for the March. 1994 Meeting The minutes for the March 14, 1994 meeting were approved. 1994 Mechanisms Conference A. Registration Summary Tom Chase reported 415 paid registrations as of Sunday with a total of 500 expected. B. Papers Coordinator Report: 1994 Mechanisms Conference Gordon Pennock thanked the Subcommittee Chairpersons for their efforts. He reported that 73 foreign papers and 153 U.S. papers were submitted making a total of 226 papers submitted. A total of 197 papers were accepted including 55 foreign papers and 142 U.S. papers. The number of papers submitted was down 30% from 1988. Most papers were submitted on 8 1/2 x 11 format instead of mats. Tom reported that a reviewer had sent him a letter of complaint concerning an incident in which an author had phoned the

reviewer and scolded the reviewer for giving his paper a bad review. Tom will send a letter of apology to this reviewer from the Mechanisms Committee. C. Proceedings 1) Authors' concern on no complementary Proceedings This year, no complementary authors' volumes were provided. T. Chase relayed concern about the cost of the Proceedings to the Design Engineering Division Committee in March 1994. The Committee acknowledged the widespread concern about the Proceedings, but a workable solution has not yet been proposed. Tom will report to the Design Engineering Division that possibly ASME should consider experimenting with alternative Proceedings formats, such as a Proceedings Diskette rather than Proceedings Volumes. A suggestion was made to provide an unbound copy so every author could obtain a copy of their own paper. 2) Utilization of Conference Reviews for Journal Reviews Wiens indicated some concern with using conference reviews as journal reviews, since many conference reviews did not indicate extensive effort in generating a decision while others did. In addition, the inconsistency in reviewer effort made it difficult to select recommended honor quality papers for the Awards committee. G. Wiens proposed utilizing conference rejections as grounds for also rejecting the paper for journal consideration, and in the case of acceptances, leaving it to the discretion of the Associate Technical Editor whether any individual conference review is adequate for journal review. G. Pennock responded that B. Ravani will use at most two reviews from the conference along with another journal review. A suggestion was made to have two different forms, one for the conference and one for the journal. D. Honors and Awards Lung-Wen Tsai reported on the Mechanisms Committee Best Paper Award; the MDI Software Award; and the Mechanisms Committee Award. He also generated a first draft of a proposal for the Freudenstein Award (see attachments). Funding this year for the Mechanisms Committee Best Paper Award was obtained by Art Erdman through a $500 contribution from PMT Corporation. Funding will be needed in the future for this award. The source of funds for the Freudenstein Award is not resolved and A. Erdman suggested fundraising. T. Chase suggested that financial remuneration

from Technology Transfer Tutorials or NDEC participation might be used for awards. E. Student Mechanisms Competition John Mirth reported that the organization of the Student Mechanism Competition went very well and the entries were high quality. F. "Paper Designation Form" and Invitation to Foreign Authors The Mechanisms Committee experimented with a new format for acceptances for nonNorth American authors. The letter of tentative acceptance was accompanied by a letter of invitation to present the paper, and a "Paper Designation Form" to indicate if the author would attend the conference, or whether the paper was to be considered a "Proceedings Only" paper. T. Chase reported that the experiment was a success. G. Invited Session Chairs & Vice-Chairs The Mechanisms Committee sent invitations to all session chairs and vice-chairs. T. Chase reported that the invited chairs appear to have appreciated the opportunity to respond, and some people probably were able to attend the conference that may not have otherwise. Therefore, this procedure was successful, although it further increases the workload of the Conference Chair. H. Thanks to Contributors to the 1994 Mechanisms Conference In addition to the Papers Review staff, T. Chase thanked: G. Lovell and A. Soni for assembling Panel Sessions; W. Durfee for managing the Exhibits; A. Erdman for soliciting $1100 in local industry conference funding; A. Erdman, M. McCarthy and B. Vierstra for assembling the Technology Transfer Tutorials; R. Cipra, Secretary; J. Davidson, Past Chairperson; and all other participants & volunteers. NEW BUSINESS Technology Transfer Tutorials The Mechanisms Committee sponsored two technology transfer tutorials as part of the Design Technical Conferences program this year. Design of Spatial Mechanisms (presented by M. McCarthy) had 19 participants, and Computer Aided Product Design (presented by A.G. Erdman R B. Vierstra) had an estimated 23 participants. The organizers are to be congratulated for their efforts. Tom Chase made the following proposal which was unanimously approved by vote of the

Mechanisms Committee and will go to the Design Engineering Committee: The Mechanisms Committee may sponsor Technology Transfer Tutorials at conferences officially sponsored by the ASME. Income from such Tutorials is independent of the ASME Conference Budget at which the tutorial is offered. Costs of supplies and nonstandard facilities will be deducted from the gross income to determine the net income. Travel, housing and conference registration for the presenter are not deductible expenses. Neither ASME nor the Mechanisms Committee assumes responsibility for losses on tutorials, so negative gross income is the responsibility of the tutorial presenter(s). Therefore, the presenter(s) must be sensitive to supplementary costs associated with presenting their tutorial. The net income will be distributed in the proportions of 50% to the presenter(s) and 50% to the Custodial Account of the Design Engineering Division. The 50% portion distributed to the presenter(s) is an honorarium for the effort involved in preparing and presenting the tutorial. The portion distributed to the Custodial Account of the Design Engineering Division is to be used only to sponsor awards designated by the Mechanisms Committee. E-mail Access of Mechanisms Committee Members J. Angeles proposed communication among members of the ASME Mechanisms Committee via the use of electronic mail to: announce the meeting; request proposals for the agenda; and submit such proposals. After discussion it was agreed that correspondence will be by e-mail giving consideration to those in industry who may not have easy access to e-mail. Conference Mats J. Angeles proposed to stop using the old-fashioned mats as a policy of this committee. It was noted that ASME is recommending 8 1/2 x 11 format and discouraging the old-style mats. After some discussion the proposal was tabled with a charge to the new Papers Coordinator to report on this item at the next meeting. Proposal for Honors Life Member Status to the Mechanisms committee C. Reinholtz proposed establishing an "Honorary Life Member" status for the Mechanisms Committee as had been discussed in the past. He will look into this and generate a formal proposal for the next meeting.

1995 Design Engineering Conference The Mechanisms Committee is sponsoring a panel session at the National Design Engineering Conference on March 13th in Chicago. J. Beard is organizing the session entitled "Uses and Limitations of Mechanism Analysis and Synthesis Software." A suggestion was made to contact MDI about participating in the panel. T. Chase indicated that $500 has been included in the 1994 DTC budget to fund teleconferencing the Mechanisms Committee meeting in March 1995. 1995 DED 50th Anniversary Conference B. Ravani has solicited History and State-of-the-Art Review papers from B. Roth, M. McCarthy, F. Park, K. Waldron, A. Erdman, and F. Freudenstein. Since only R. Freeman has completed a section for a review paper, the Mechanisms Committee decided not to submit a Review paper. The Design Automation Committee would like a point person to handle reviews of mechanism type papers and this person would be identified in the Call for Papers. 1996 Mechanisms Conference Mike McCarthy reported on arrangements for the 1996 Mechanisms Conference to be held in Irvine, California on September 23-25, 1996. Mike would like to propose moving the conferencedates to the last week of August and will propose this to the DED tomorrow. T. Chase noted that the Database Committee felt that having the conference before Labor Day is a problem. M. McCarthy announced that E. Fichter will be the new Papers Coordinator, and S. Song and K. Kazerounian will assist. 1998 Mechanisms Conference The 1998 Mechanisms Conference is scheduled for Atlanta, Georgia and Harvey Lipkin has submitted a form CA-1 to ASME. Harvey reported that the Mechanisms Committee and the Design Theory and Methodology Committee (DTM) will co-sponsor the conference with Farrokh Mistree (also from Georgia Tech) co-chairing the conference with Harvey. 2000 Mechanisms Conference

Suggestions were made to hold this conference at Purdue University, University of California at Davis, or University of Maryland. L. W. Tsai made a proposal to hold the 2000 Mechanisms Conference at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, and there was unanimous support for this proposal. Elections to the Mechanisms Committee The following nominations were taken from the floor: J. Mike McCarthy Clement Goesselin (withdrew) Kazem Kazerounian Shin-Min Song Jahan Rastegar John Mirth John Beard Mike Stanisec Sridhar Kota Robert Williams Greg Chirikjian Kambiz Farhang Meyer Nahon The election results were: Term expiring in 2000 Term expiring in 1998 J. Beard J. Angeles K. Kazerounian E. Fichter J. M. McCarthy R. Freeman S. Song D. Kohli R. Williams G. Lovell

Term expiring in 1996 G. Pennock C. Reinholtz L. W. Tsai J. Wiederrich G. Wiens

Next Committee Meeting The next meeting will be held on Monday, March 13, 1995 in Chicago at the 1995 National Design Engineering Conference. ADJOURNMENT T. Chase adjourned the meeting at 10:00 P.M. Respectfully submitted, R.J. Cipra, Secretary