Awesome Gears

If you built a car with wheels made from smaller wheels, would it drive faster or slower than a car with standard wheels? Banana Gear Studios put that idea to the test by engineering a unique LEGO vehicle with two rear wheels, each outfitted with eight small wheels connected to a motor via a series of gears.

The Karakuri Channel has made some amazing little mechanical gadgets and kinetic artworks. This video shows how they built a small but complicated machine that tosses dice onto a turntable. Once they land inside its ring, an arm clears the dice and sends them up an elevator to start the process over. (Turn captions on for English descriptions.)

Magnetic interactions can be so satisfying. Take, for instance, this grid of 15 gears that spin when just one of them is turned. MagnetTricks set up this brief physics demonstration using hundreds of magnets arranged into a rainbow of colors. We wonder if there’s a limit to how many gears you could have before the chain reaction stops working.

Some factories have fancy conveyor systems that can move items in different directions. We’ve also been wowed by Disney’s Holotile floor. Banana Gear Studios’ LEGO treadmill takes inspiration from the Holotile, but uses discs that tilt at different angles items instead of rotating them. The mini treadmill can only move tiny objects, but it could be expanded.

Nothing quite beats cooking meat over an open fire. But it takes time and attention to ensure it cooks evenly. That’s why the spit jack roaster was invented. Townsends shows us how a blacksmith might have made such a precision piece of machinery in the 18th century. We’d love to see a time-lapse of Brandon cutting the teeth in that big gear. (Thanks, Orion!)

A tourbillon is a watch movement that places its mechanism inside a rotating cage to improve accuracy. Most tourbillons move on a single or double axis, with the most complex ones having a three-axis design. The KARAKURI Channel took things to the next level by engineering a spherical tourbillon that has multiple 3-axis movements. Turn captions on.

An orrery is one of those mechanical models that simulate how planets move in the solar system. A tellurion is the same concept but only includes the Earth, its moon, and the sun. Chronova Engineering made an incredibly small tellurion and posted this video of the build process. The finished model has six gears, and is smaller than a fingernail.

A while back, we checked out a complicated machine that used LEGO Technic parts to pull a chain around a bunch of gears. That one was built by Brick Technology. Now Brick Machines took the idea and expanded on it with a ridiculously complicated machine driven by a continuous chain built from 1,184 LEGO chain links.

Do you like challenging jigsaw puzzles? This detailed monochrome image of gears should keep you busy for a while. The 1000-piece puzzle has precision-cut curved pieces that radiate out from its center. Unlike other circular puzzles we’ve seen, this one has no color coding or lettering on the back to ensure it remains difficult.

Today’s most satisfying video comes in the form of this clip from the Brick Experiment Channel. Their goal? Create the longest possible chain of 1×1 LEGO Technic gears while retaining the same gear ratio from start to finish. We’re impressed that a single motor can drive that many gears.

Mathematician and maker Henry Segerman shows off more of his fascinating interactive mechanisms. This series of interlocking straight gears uses a rack-and-pinion mechanism to transmit motion. Henry posted the models to 3D print your own recursive racks on Printables.

Artist Ross McSweeney created these fascinating mechanical coasters. There are four smooth-spinning patterns, including geometric shapes, gears, and a bicycle. Their outer gears touch when placed next to each other so that you can spin multiple designs simultaneously. You can purchase the SVG files for laser cutting on Etsy.

Rapidly spinning objects can result in some cool, Spirograph-like patterns. LEGO mechanical builder Yoshihito Isogawa shows how different arrangements of LEGO Technic gears create different geometric patterns when spun in front of a camera’s lens. It would be interesting to see some larger and more complicated designs.

This unique pocket knife features a geared mechanism to reveal its stubby 23mm (0.9″) 8CR13MOV steel blade. It’s the perfect size for a pendant or a keychain, though when it’s closed, it looks sort of those creatures Khan put in Chekhov’s ear in Star Trek II.

We recently saw how to create a very fast bicycle by dramatically increasing the size of its drive gear. YouTuber BigWR took a different approach by arranging multiple sets of gears to up this bike’s gear ratio. He was able to pedal up to speeds as high as 33 mph on flat ground.

The crank on a typical 10-speed bicycle measures about 5″ across. But what would happen if you supersize that? BigWR gives us a lesson in gear ratios by outfitting his bike’s crankset with an enormous gear to see how much faster it could go on pedal power alone. At least it’s not as bad of an idea as his double steering bike.