Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements

In a similar vein, here is a video from the US Navy in the 1950s which describes how mechanical computers work (for calculating trajectories of missiles being shot from ships.)<p>Utterly fascinating to see how very simple mechanical devices, like differing gear ratios, can be used to calculate things like logarithms.<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpkTHyfr0pM" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=mpkTHyfr0pM</a>

Okay, stupid questions. - To what extent are mechanical engineers using these sorts of things? - Are there texts discussing the design &#x2F; selection &#x2F; integration of movements to perform particular tasks? - Are there are texts like that targeting application to Arduino driven robotics? Mindstorms?

For those who like printed books, Dover has an inexpensive edition of the underlying book [1].<p>There are many similar books, such as &quot;A Victorian Handbook of Mechanical Movements&quot; [2], and &quot;1800 Mechanical Movements, Devices and Appliances&quot; [3].<p>[1] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-Devices/dp/0486443604/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_1" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;507-Mechanical-Movements-Mechanisms-De...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0486498123" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0486498123</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Movements-Devices-Appliances-Science/dp/0486457435/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_6" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Mechanical-Movements-Devices-Appliance...</a>

If you like this kind of thing and you haven&#x27;t run across the Equation of Time cam from the clock of the long now, take a moment and check it out:<p><a href="http://news.cnet.com/2300-11386_3-10000718-7.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.cnet.com&#x2F;2300-11386_3-10000718-7.html</a>

Really cute mechanism in <a href="http://507movements.com/mm_123.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;507movements.com&#x2F;mm_123.html</a><p>The little pins hit the V in the center gear and cause it to shift to the other gear. Neat!

That kind of stuff, is why I&#x27;ve always wanted to be an engineer. In my mind, I visualize arrangements of systems and networks exactly the same way as these.<p>Building stuff, pressing the &quot;On&#x27; button, and seeing it all work is just the best feeling in the world.

FWIW, these are great fun to print out on a 3D printer and play with.

Here&#x27;s a YouTube video that shows some of these: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkQ2pXkYjRM" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=mkQ2pXkYjRM</a>

This reminded me of a recent paper on automatically designing animated mechanical characters. Some of these movements could be used to incorporate different kinds of animations into these characters.<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfznnKUwywQ" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=DfznnKUwywQ</a>

Some of these I had to see animated to even grasp what it might do. Even then I couldn&#x27;t figure out what use it might be.<p>A couple of them describe stuff that used it but most were just technical details. It would be nice if there was a link to something that used it so you could see why it was ever made (or maybe some of these are just for fun).<p>I couldn&#x27;t get through them all but will come back because it&#x27;s fun to watch. More fun than it should be really.<p>edit: example of one that has me guessing why it exists: <a href="http://507movements.com/mm_115.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;507movements.com&#x2F;mm_115.html</a>

Back in the early 1900s there were a handful of people making physical models of a number of these movements (and some that went beyond this incredible collection). They occasionally tour, Boston&#x27;s Museum of Science had a big show of William M. Clark&#x27;s collection back in 2006, I think. Anyway, Cornell has &quot;The Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library&quot; where they try to keep track of all of these physical models:<p><a href="http://kmoddl.library.cornell.edu/collection-toc.php" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;kmoddl.library.cornell.edu&#x2F;collection-toc.php</a>

People are so damn clever.

This looks like a wonderful thing. But I can&#x27;t see any animations! What am I missing?<p>Edit: ah, only the color diagrams are animated. The top of the page links to a blurb about that.

Is there any software that would allow one to easily build and simulate these kind of mechanical movements?

I&#x27;m much more excited about watching all of these little mechanical animations on a Saturday night than I ought to be...

Oh damnit! Now I miss my lego technic sets!

The animation for <a href="http://507movements.com/mm_349.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;507movements.com&#x2F;mm_349.html</a> is actually a bit misleading, since there are two degrees of freedom: the lateral movements of the lower and upper halves are independent.

19 - 22: Am I reading this right? Exponential reduction of the power required? I gotta try this.

Clicked thinking I was going to be introduced to a new startup with a pretty cool name ... actual mechanical movements not bad either, however.

<a href="http://507movements.com/mm_089.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;507movements.com&#x2F;mm_089.html</a><p>Warning: Hypnotic.

this is beautiful; this will definitely come in handy when I start machining...