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This page begins with the contents of the document "ROMFA_2-25_eve.doc" which was last editied, before being uploaded here, in October 2006.  None of the drawings from that document transferred over, so I will try to bring them over, or redo them as necessary.

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Breaking Things Down

The Rudiments Of Mechanics For Kinetic Art

A guide for the mechanically bankrupt, the compleat kinetic idiot, and anyone else interested in how simple mechanisms really work and how to build them.

By Christopher T Palmer

 

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Preface

Foreword

Introduction

Explain kinetics, kinetic art, movement, mechanisms, mechanics, force, work, leverage, simple machines, basic elements, explain progression of chapters

 

Basic elements:

1    Lever (CMM 2)

2    Wheel

3    Axle & Shaft (CMM 3)

4    Pulley

5    Gear (CMM 9)

6    Drive belts & chains (CMM 9)

7    Crank and rod (CMM 4)

8    Cam (CMM 5)

9    Bearings

10    Oscillating Links/Joints/Hinges (CMM 7)

11    Spring

12    Inclined Plane & Wedge

13    Screw

 

Complex elements:

14    Ratchets & latches

15    Rotational Links - U Joints - Flexible shafts

16    Screw Drives – Linear actuators, jack screws

 

Basic electricity and electromechanical devices:

    AC vs. DC, wire, switches, relays, solenoids, motors (Basic EM actuators)

 

Statics:

    Bases, leverage, frames, fasteners, triangulation, gussets

 

Appendix

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Back Cover

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

 

So why this book? And why now?

The “why” of this book can be answered by the fact that more and more people I meet seem to want to know how things work, specifically to help them build art that moves.  This book, however, will be quite useful to anyone wanting a deeper understanding of machines and mechanisms, not just artists. 

 

Why now?

People for quite a while now have grown up using tools and mechanisms which come to them prefabricated and ready to use...all the bugs worked out...the inner workings hidden safely from view. 

(PICTURE OF OLD TOOL OR DEVICE)

The world used to be a very different place.  People used to fashion their own tools, the tools they bought usually had their workings exposed (or easily exposable) for inspection, and when they stopped working they were often repaired-either by their owner or by a local tinker.  Lots of folks had the mental toolkit in place to figure out what was wrong and figure out how to make things work again.  When something like this is no longer needed, or utilized, it inevitably withers generationally.

 

I am a visual artist, and I am a person with a high degree of mechanical skill and experience.  As an arts educator I meet many people who would like to incorporate movement, mechanics, or just simple physical structure into works of art but just didn’t know where to begin.  Enter this book…the object of this book is not to show you a blueprint of how you should build your works, but rather to help you start developing that “mental toolkit”  that will allow you to envision and build what you need to without too much frustration.

 

This book will be covering topics you may have hoped you would never see again...things like force, work, friction, inertia, rectilinear motion (“not rectilinear motion!” I hear you gasping.  ‘fraid so, chum)  We’ll also be visiting our old friends the "simple machines" - the wheel, the lever, the inclined plane (and a few others) but I assure you, these things will be presented in a very painless and friendly manner...at least as painless and friendly as we can make them.  We will start with the simplest concepts, using examples from everyday life, as much as possible.  More complex mechanisms will be introduced by building basic elements onto one another.  This is actually where the title came from…we will take these everyday examples, and disassemble them, working out in our minds how they operate, storing the info in that mental toolkit.

 

KINETIC ART:

 

Motion Elements

 

 

Kinetic Art

 

 

Structure                Power

 

All kinetic works involve these three components to varying degrees. 

 

Structure incorporates the works’ base, and its framework.  This is what gives the piece its form and part of its outline, keeps it together, and allows the motion elements, and power, to do what they were designed to do.  The structure not only provides the necessary skeleton (to keep the piece from being a pile of kinetic elements struggling in a heap on the floor) but very often dictates a good deal of the piece’s aesthetics.  The structure may be rustic, made from tree branches or reclaimed building materials.  Or cluttered and curious, made from found industrial objects.  Or highly finished, made from custom steel and aluminum parts (like Alan Rath’s works)(pictures)

 

 

Power, in our case, refers to what makes the kinetic piece move.  It can be something as simple as wind power (by pointing a propeller of some sort into a breeze and harnessing the output), or human power – whether thru hand cranking, pedaling, or just pushing the piece around like a shopping cart…all the way up to an electrically powered behemoth with dozens of motors, and other electromechanical devices. (picture)

 

 

The third piece of the triangle, and the one at the core of this book, is the collected motion elements.  These are the items built up from what we call the “basic elements”.  In upcoming chapters we will be looking at each basic element in detail.

 

SIMPLE MACHINES:

This list traditionally includes 6 items - the wheel and axle, the lever, the pulley, the inclined plane, the wedge, and the screw. 

(PICTURE OF EACH)

While these 6 building blocks form the historical cornerstone of machines and mechanisms, and are important to understand well, they don’t give a complete detailed picture of the basic parts that are so important to almost all machines and mechanisms today.  I have put together a larger set of simple mechanisms - “The Basic Elements of Machines and Mechanisms.”  Throughout this book we will focus on these “basic elements” (and a few more complex ones too), learn how they work, and learn how to use them…singly, or in conjunction with one another to solve motion problems and create more complex machines.

 

 The basic elements contain all 6 of the archetypal simple machines, and add quite a few more items that are helpful for building machines. (BTW - The basic elements live in a realm known as "dynamics"...a later part of this book is dedicated to the realm of structure, also known as "statics".)

 

THE BASIC ELEMENTS (in alphabetical order):

Axle

Bearing

Cam

Crank, and crank & rod

Drive belts & chains

Gear

Inclined Plane

Links – Joints, Hinges

Lever

Pulley

Ratchets, catches, and latches

Rotational Links - U Joints - Flexible shafts

Screw

Spring

Wedge (remove from list because it is just an inclined plane…but explain this)

Wheel

(actuators?)

 

This book will explain each of these elements, show real world examples wherever possible, how and where to use them, and sometimes why too.

 

As long as I am busy explaining things, there are a few terms we should get straight between us from the start.  These may seem like "lingo" to you, and of course they are...but lingo serves a very real purpose.  It allows those in the know to communicate accurately and succinctly with one another without having to dumb down the discussion, or go into lengthy explanations every time a concept comes up.  You bought this book to be better in the know, right?  Here are some of the first concepts we need to identify…types of motion.

 

We will be talking about all sorts of motion in this book...after all, it is a book about making art that moves.  First off, we need to agree that motion means movement, and we will attach the word KINETIC to that definition as well. The types of motion we need to label are as follows:

(PROVIDE DIAGRAMS FOR EACH)

RECIPROCATING - back and forth

OSCILLATING - back and forth

ROTARY - round and round

RECTILINEAR - in a straight path

CURVILINEAR - in a curved path

 

Some other terms we need to get out of the way right now:

WORK -

POWER – the ability to do work

FORCE –

INPUT –

 

(DISCUSS POWER – let’s take an electric motor, for example.  You connect it to electrical “power”, either the AC electricity in your wall or to a battery, and the motor converts that electrical power into a mechanical force (which happens to be rotary) The motor has the ability to do work, so we will also call its output “power”)(DIAGRAM)

 

(MENTION THE GLOSSARY IN CASE ANYONE IS NERVOUS)

 

(It may seem to some that we play a little fast and loose with some terminology.  This is not a physics text, but rather a guidebook for artists, and other mechanical laymen.  It has a certain job to do, and the language we use is chosen to get that job done without getting too hung up on perfection.  Rather than try to change the reader’s vernacular, we will work with common usages for words, and try to provide explanation of words’ other meanings.)

 

GREY AREAS (MOVE THIS TO LATER?)

Many of the basic elements, when applied, seem like they could fit into two different categories...a lever might look like a link, or a crank might look more like a wheel and axle.  We try to put them into the category that feels most right, but in point of fact they can belong to more than one category without any problems.  Each category that fits merely explains part of the usage or implementation of the element.  We will try to point out all of these overlaps as we come to them throughout the book.

 

Interconnectedness

Many of the basic elements won’t work by themselves and are therefore made up of more than one basic element (see the chapter on cams, for example, which rely on the axle, the bearing, and the lever or link or push-rod to be useful).  We try to introduce early the most basic of the individual components, then introducing the other parts in more detail later in the book.  But sometimes you may need to take it on faith that something works the way we say it does and get the complete explanation later.  Each chapter will also point out related topics elsewhere in the book.

 

OVER-ENGINEERING

What is over-engineering?  This is like building a child's chair from solid steel girders weighing several hundred pounds each. If the aesthetics of the piece call for this type of treatment, then the choice can make perfect sense. But if we over-engineer from lack of knowledge, then we waste time, materials, energy, and more than likely end up with an art piece that doesn’t match our original vision. What the reader may discover over time, through reading, viewing, studying works, and more than anything - experience, are the strengths, weaknesses, pros, cons, processes and limits of common materials...where, when, and how they should be used. We will cover a great deal of this sort of thing, as it applies to kinetic art, in this book.  But remember - nothing can substitute for the experience of building something and seeing it work. or better yet, seeing it fail.  The most important thing you may ever need to learn about making machines is to figure out WHY one of them failed.

 

 

 BASIC ELEMENTS - EXAMPLES:

 

 

BEARINGS

Doorknob

Hinges

Car wheel

Ladder joint

Pizza cutter

One way bearings

Pulley

Engine

Bicycle

 

BELLCRANK

Door Block

 

CAM

Nautilus machine

Engine

 

CRANK AND ROD

Mixer

Steam locomotive

Windshield wiper motor

Sewing machine

Reciprocating saw

Hand crank wheel

 

DRIVES (BELTS & CHAINS)

Bicycle

Olds Toronado/Harley

Fan belt

Clothesline

 

INCLINED PLANE

Ramp

Self-closing hinges

 

GEAR

Eggbeater

Hand drill

Spirograph

Fiskars Lopping Shears

Orange juicer

 

LEVER

Scissors

Nutcracker

Seesaw

Lopping Shears

Electric Motor

Wheelbarrow

Hammer

Prybar

Emergency brake handle

Mt bike

 

LINK

Orange Juicer

Lopping shears

Picker upper

Mt bike

 

PISTON & CYLINDER/BULB

Syringe

Shock absorber

Door closer

Pump/compressor

Turkey baster

Balloon

Bellows

Mt bike

Engine

Solenoid

 

PULLEY

Clothesline

Flagpole

Aux drive system on an engine (fanbelt)

 

RATCHET/CATCH/ESCAPEMENT

Clock

Ratchet wrench

Comealong

Door catches

 

SCREW

Faucet

Valve

Fasteners

Jar or bottle top

 

SPRING (TORSION, TENSION, COMPRESSION, LEAF)

Automobile

Doorknob

Pogo stick

Rubber band

Door closer

WEDGE

Doorstop

Knife

Axe

Pizza cutter

 

WEIGHT

Sash weights

Gate weights

Cuckoo clock weights

 

 

 

 

 

WHEEL AND AXLE

Car

Wheelbarrow

Bicycle

Pizza cutter

Hand drill

Can opener

Doorknob

 

ELECROMECHANICAL ACTUATORS -MOTOR,SOLENOID,SHAPE MEMORY WIRE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE WHEEL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The wheel and axle have always been combined historically, and always in that order.  But since so many other basic elements rely on the axle, we’ve decided to keep them separate.   The axle is a rod which rides in or on one or more bearings

 

MOVE THIS WHERE IT BELONGS:

(SIDEBAR - I guess this might be a good time to introduce bearings to you.  A bearing is something in or on which something rotates or slides…and that’s anything which rotates or slides.  Take the simple pizza cutter.  The rivet on which the cutting wheel turns is the axle, and the hole in the cutting wheel is the bearing.  It’s not a very precise bearing, but it doesn’t have to be…remember what we said earlier about not over-engineering something?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BEARINGS

 

the core, the crux, the very heart of what makes a mechanical device of any kind work.  From bicycles, to pizza cutters, to mixers, to garbage disposals, to jumbo jets…if they didn’t have bearings, nothing would operate.  A bearing, simply put, is something on which or in which something else rotates or slides (and machines depend on them)  In other words, they “bear” the force of another object.

 

bare/base material – whatever the object is made from

bushings – oilite, bronze, brass, steel, graphite

    tubes – K&S, copper pipe

ball bearings – loose ball (bicycle)

cartridge (skates, R/C cars)

Roller Bearings

Needle Bearings

 

 

 

THE LEVER

It all begins with the lever.  The lever is probably the first of all the simple machines to be utilized, and it can be traced back to prehistoric times.  It is one of the few tools that lower primates of today have been known to fashion and use.

 

The wheel is a derivative of the lever...and therefore so is the pulley, the gear, and the crank.  Levers are found everywhere...typewriters, pianos, cars, wheelbarrows, hammers...arms and legs are levers as well...the joints are the fulcrums, the muscles provide the force, and the ground or something else the resistance.  The lever, in its simplest form is a bar with a pivot somewhere along its length. That pivot is called a fulcrum (from the Latin fulcire meaning “bedpost”…yea, that made a lot of sense to me as well).

 

There are 3 classes of levers.  They are imaginatively named class one, class two, and class three. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The class one lever is like a seesaw.  The force is on one side, the load (or resistance) on the other, and the fulcrum is in the middle. If both sides of the lever are the same length, we have a lever with a mechanical advantage of 1.  This is derived by dividing the load side into the force side.  It stands to reason then that a lever with one side twice as long as the other has a mechanical advantage of 2, since one side is two units long and the other side is one, and 2/1 equals 2.  Now I know the question on everyone’s mind is “why should I care?” Well…we’ll get there soon.  Read about the other types of levers first though.  (explain force multiplication)(diagram)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The class two lever is like a wheelbarrow or a nutcracker (the nutcracker is actually two class two levers with their fulcrums at the same ends) the load and the force are on the same side of the fulcrum, with the force outside the load. The class two lever’s mechanical advantage is found by looking at how much lever is on either side of the load.(explain its mechanical advantage)(diagram)  A prybar can be either a class one or class two lever depending on where you put the fulcrum. (diagram)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The class three lever is very similar to the class two, in that the force and load are on the same side of the fulcrum, but in the case of the class three the load is on the far end from the fulcrum.  One of the best examples of a class three lever is the human forearm (explain – Its got a fulcrum, what we call your elbow, a lifting force, your bicep, and a load, itself and whatever you are lifting).  The class three lever has a negative mechanical advantage.  This means that in our previous examples we got to lift heavier objects with less force than the objects weighed.  Why would we want a lever with a negative mechanical advantage?  Why would we want to do more work?  Remember that we while we never get something for nothing, the opposite is true too…we don’t get nothing for something.  In the case of the class three lever, what we give up in mechanical advantage, we gain back in travel.  When the force on a class three lever (with say a 10:1 ratio (diagram)) moves one inch, the outer end of the lever moves 10 inches, and at a higher speed than the force.  This is the principle that makes catapults work. (diagram)  This use of a lever becomes a distance and speed multiplier, rather than a force multiplier. 

 

We can take advantage of these properties with all three levers.  Often in kinetic art we aren’t as concerned with how much weight we can lift using how much force, but we are more concerned with how much output travel distance we can get from how much input.  Sometimes we need a speed (and/or distance) reducer and sometimes we need a multiplier.  Say we built a device which relied on human input to activate it.  We give the participant a lever 2” long, and our piece needs to move 10”.  With the law of the lever it’s really quite a simple thing to do. (drawing)

 

 

 

THE CRANK

Practically everyone will have used or seen a crank in their lifetime.  From games to tools they are everywhere.  A crank is a deceptively simple cross between a wheel and a lever.  They can be used as a power input device - such as from a human, or motor, to supply power to a machine of practically any size (picture of locomotive driver) from a locomotive to an egg beater.  In general they are used to convert between oscillating and rotating motion.

 

(Show had cranks, and engine cranks, locomotive cranks, etc

Show advantage of a hand crank over a simple wheel of the same size and function.)

 

GEARS

 

 

Gears are incredibly useful elements.  They can be used to transmit motion over distances, change the speed or power of a force, or change the direction of a force…or even all three at once.  We can think of a gear as a wheel of levers - they act as rotary levers - we’ll find out how in this chapter.

 

Your most basic, and probably most familiar gear set up is a pair of spur gears, as seen here.

 

We rotate one of the gears and the teeth of the one push on the teeth of the other creating a continuous rotary motion.

 

If we redraw those gears as that wheel of levers I just mentioned we will discover something.

 

 

 

Wheel of levers

Running in multiples

Bevel gears for changing directions

Pin gears

Cage gears

 

Talk about ease of use, problems of use, limitations of use

Hard to make toothed gears – easy to buy them

Easier to make other kinds – hard to buy them

Casting ideas – Newstead process

Attaching gears to shafts

 

CAMS

Cams change one type of motion into another.  Like a crank, cams can change rotary motion into reciprocating motion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 but much of the time since it might be easier to just use a crank for this, we use cams for far more complex motions.  A cam is usually used where we want an event triggered on or at a specific period. (PICTURES)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cams can be round, or cylindrical, or even flat like a plate.

 

Cams can drive a link from their side perpendicular to their rotation (edge cam).

 

Cams can drive a link from their face parallel to their rotation (face cam).

 

Cams need certain types of “followers” to make them work properly.

 

Cams can translate complex motion where a crank could only provide simple oscillation.

 

Cams can translate rotational as well as rectilinear and curvilinear motion into complex oscillation.

 

Cams can be thought of as moving inclined planes…some rotating, some sliding.

 

Cams can induce friction-rotation along with rise and fall (like in AweTomata).

 

 

 

 

DRIVE BELTS AND CHAINS

Like all the rest of the basic elements, drive chains can be found all over the place. Look on the drive train of a bicycle, or the motorized racks at a dry cleaners, or on the engine of a car. (PICTURES)

 

As you can see from these examples, drive belts and chains can be used to transmit power from your legs to the wheels that make you move...or from the engine to some auxiliary system (like an alternator, or power steering pump)...or even to connect things to directly in order to move them closer or further away from you, like at a dry cleaners.

 

Drive belts and chains come in many flavors. Some, like the bicycle chain, are what are known as "positive drives"...this is because each link on the chain engages one tooth on the cogs. In all but the most extreme uses, this type of drive will not slip. This can be important when we need a drive under heavy load, or if we need to keep track of the position of something on the chain (like our dry cleaning)  other types of positive drives include toothed belts.

 

Another type of drive is the smooth belt.  Belts are not a positive drive but are a friction drive.  These include the ubiquitous V-Belt, the serpentine belt, and things like rubber band drives, and O-Ring drives.  Since these types of drives are not positive, they can slip under load. 

 

(sidebar - in many cases, like the choice between a positive and friction drive, we may have a tendency to choose what appears to be the more solid, or stronger choice. Much of the time this leads to the condition we discussed in the introduction -  over-engineering.  We will continue to discuss overengineering wherever appropriate throughout the book. )

 

What type of drive we select has a lot to do with what we have on hand, and how we want a piece to look or perform.

 

(sidebar - lots of times the choice of an inferior drive is the right choice.  If a kinetc artist wanted to give a piece a herky-jerky feel, or a very chaotic motion, the wrong drive choice might be the right drive choice ((give examples))

 

Chain drives come in many different types as well...from all plastic chain and cog systems, to multi-row steel arrangements. One of my favorites is what is known as ladder chain...it is made from interlocking segments of wire, and uses plastic gearing.  For most applications it is completely sufficient.  (SIDENOTE - make a few pages with illustrations of each type of drive system, explaining the pros and cons. Like how bike chain is easily found, but the cogs are hard to make use of. Include toothed belts, roller chain, plastic chain, ladder chain, v-belts, o-ring, friction belt, rubber band

 

 

 

THE SCREW

While practically every reader will have seen and used a screw, or nut and bolt, at some point – possibly to attach some part to their car or bicycle or wheelchair, or maybe when building a birdhouse or piece of furniture, they crop up most everywhere.  In fact if you have ever opened a jar or bottle, you have made use of the screw.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most people have no idea that the screw, or threads, whatever you want to call them, are just an inclined plane wrapped around a cylinder or cone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many readers also won't realize that a screw can be used to make things move.  There are screws that do this all over the place - fishing reels, copy machines, faucets and valves, furniture feet, stools, C-Clamps, even some garlic presses...

(PICTURES)

 

 

 NOTES

 

Work with Jamais paraphrasing the defs

Gains and losses - Can't get something for nothing

Mechanical advantage-sometimes negative is okay

Talk about how resistance can be a very useful tool

Intermittent motion

Ratchets and escapements

Talk about the "basic elements" rather than the “simple machines” (after introducing the simple machines)

Basic Elements: SEE INTRO

 

Illustrate differences between statics and dynamics in intro.

Work on sidebars for more technical explanations and experiments for readers to try.

 

Triangulation-crane example

Stiff vs flexible members-beams vs strings-nevada power pole example

 

Show how many machines can be used in reverse...like crank and rod...and how some can not be...like a cam and follower.

 

Include a “see also” at the start of each chapter?

 

EXCLUSIONS:

What's not in this book? Subjective information on aesthetics

This book won't necessarily help you make a sculpture that looks like you want it to...but it will hopefully help make it move like you want it to.

Machine tool use and safety, Computer control, Computer aided design, Microcontrollers, Stepper motors, Servo motors, R/C servos

 GLOSSARY

 

AXLE - 1 a : a pin or shaft on or with which a wheel or pair of wheels revolves

 

AUTOMATA - 1 : a mechanism that is relatively self-operating; especially : ROBOT: 2 : a machine or control mechanism designed to follow automatically a predetermined sequence of operations or respond to encoded instructions

 

BALL BEARING - : a bearing in which the journal turns upon loose hardened steel balls that roll easily in a race; also : one of the balls in such a bearing.  See also – Needle Bearing, Bearing

 

BEARING - b : a machine part in which another part ([such]as a journal or pin) turns or slides.  Bearings can be as simple as a hole drilled in an object (called a Bushing), or as complex as a one way needle bearing.  Bearings come in many varieties – Bushings, Ball Bearings, Needle Bearings, One Way Bearings, Tapered Bearings.  Also see Ball Bearing, Needle Bearing.

 

BELLCRANK – a bellcrank is a lever, usually modified with a bend, and often having more than two attachment points.

 

BRACKET – 1 : an overhanging member that projects from a structure (as a wall) and is usually designed to support a vertical load or to strengthen an angle

2 : a fixture (as for holding a lamp) projecting from a wall or column.

 

BUSHING – the more proper term for a bearing consisting of a hole drilled in a substrate.  Also a bearing made from a solid material, i.e. bronze, brass, plastic, graphite, etc.

 

CAM - : a rotating or sliding piece in a mechanical linkage used especially in transforming rotary motion into linear motion or vice versa

related to wheel...like a wheel of inclined planes.  A simple straight inclined plane can be a cam if while sliding back and forth it raises and lowers a lever.

 

CRANK - 1 : a bent part of an axle or shaft or an arm keyed at right angles to the end of a shaft by which circular motion is imparted to or received from the shaft or by which reciprocating motion is changed into circular motion or vice versa.  A crank is a lever that has special attachments for special purposes.  That purpose could be to allow a hand to turn the crank thus turning an axle and thus some part of a machine.  Or it could be used with a link of some sort to convert between rotary and straight line reciprocal motion.

 

DYNAMICS - 1 : a branch of mechanics that deals with forces and their relation primarily to the motion but sometimes also to the equilibrium of bodies

 

FORCE - 1 a (1) : strength or energy exerted or brought to bear : cause of motion or change

 

FOOT-POUNDS - : a unit of work equal to the work done by a force of one pound acting through a distance of one foot in the direction of the force

 

FULCRUM - 1 a : PROP; specifically : the support about which a lever turns.  Pivot point.

 

GEAR - a toothed wheel

related to lever...like a wheel of levers

 

GUSSET – 2 : a plate or bracket for strengthening an angle in framework (as in a building or bridge)

 

HORSEPOWER - 2 : a unit of power equal in the U.S. to 746 watts and nearly equivalent to the English gravitational unit of the same name that equals 550 foot-pounds of work per second

3 : effective power <intellectual horsepower> <computing horsepower>

 

INCLINED PLANE - : a plane surface that makes an oblique (neither perpendicular nor parallel) angle with the plane of the horizon

 

JACKSCREW…

 

JOULE - a unit of work or energy equal to the work done by a force of one Newton acting through a distance of one meter.

 

JOURNAL – a keyed surface upon which an object slides.

 

KEY – a piece of metal, often removable, attached to a shaft, to keep an object on the shaft from rotating separately.

 

KINETIC ENERGY - energy associated with motion.

 

LEADSCREW…

 

LEVER - 2 a : a rigid piece that transmits and modifies force or motion when forces are applied at two points and it turns about a third; specifically : a rigid bar used to exert a pressure or sustain a weight at one point of its length by the application of a force at a second and turning at a third on a fulcrum b : a projecting piece by which a mechanism is operated or adjusted

3 orders of levers exist

First order lever - seesaw

Second order lever - prybar

Third order lever - human arm

 

LINK - 3c d : an intermediate rod or piece for transmitting force or motion; especially : a short connecting rod with a hole or pin at each end

 

LOAD - 2 a : a mass or weight supported by something <branches bent low by their load of fruit> b : the forces to which a structure is subjected due to superposed weight or to wind pressure on the vertical surfaces; broadly : the forces to which a given object is subjected

 

MACHINE - (1) : an assemblage of parts that transmit forces, motion, and energy one to another in a predetermined manner (2) : an instrument (as a lever) designed to transmit or modify the application of power, force, or motion f : a mechanically, electrically, or electronically operated device for performing a task

 

MECHANICAL - 1 a (1) : of or relating to machinery or tools <mechanical applications of science> <a mechanical genius> <mechanical aptitude> (2) : produced or operated by a machine or tool <mechanical power> <a mechanical refrigerator> <a mechanical saw> b : of or relating to manual operations

2 : of or relating to artisans or machinists <the mechanical trades>

3 a : done as if by machine : seemingly uninfluenced by the mind or emotions : AUTOMATIC <her singing was cold and mechanical> b : of or relating to technicalities or petty matters

4 a : relating to, governed by, or in accordance with the principles of mechanics <mechanical work> <mechanical energy> b : relating to the quantitative relations of force and matter <mechanical pressure of wind on a tower>

5 : caused by, resulting from, or relating to a process that involves a purely physical as opposed to a chemical change <mechanical erosion of rock>

 

MECHANICS - 1 : a branch of physical science that deals with energy and forces and their effect on bodies

2 : the practical application of mechanics to the design, construction, or operation of machines or tools

3 : mechanical or functional details or procedure

 

MECHANISM - 1 a : a piece of machinery b : a process or technique for achieving a result

2 : mechanical operation or action  4 : the fundamental physical or chemical processes involved in or responsible for an action, reaction, or other natural phenomenon

 

MECHANISTIC - 1 : mechanically determined <mechanistic universe>

2 : of or relating to a mechanism or the doctrine of mechanism

3 : MECHANICAL

- mech·a·nis·ti·cal·ly – adverb

 

NEEDLE BEARING – A bearing which uses small cylinders of metal in place of metal balls.  See also – Ball Bearing

 

NEWTON - the unit of force in the meter-kilogram-second system equal to the force required to impart an acceleration of one meter per second per second to a mass of one kilogram

 

OSCILLATION - Back and forth motion.

 

POTENTIAL ENERGY - the energy that a piece of matter has because of its position or because of the arrangement of parts.

 

POWER - 1 a (1) : ability to act or produce an effect, 6 a : a source or means of supplying energy; especially : ELECTRICITY

 

PULLEY - 1 : a sheave or small wheel with a grooved rim and with or without the block in which it runs used singly with a rope or chain to change the direction and point of application of a pulling force and in various combinations to increase the applied force especially for lifting weights

2 : a pulley or pulleys with ropes to form a tackle that constitutes one of the simple machines

3 : a wheel used to transmit power by means of a band, belt, cord, rope, or chain passing over its rim

related to wheel

 

PUSH-ROD – a rod used to transfer an action from one place to another.  Usually a link without means of attachment on either end.  Often used to transmit the motion provided by a cam to another element.

 

RECIPROCATING - back and forth, 2 : to move forward and backward alternately <a reciprocating valve>

 

RECTILINEAR - 1 : moving in or forming a straight line <rectilinear motion>

 

RESISTANCE (mechanical) - A force opposing or retarding an action, usually caused  (or provided) by friction, gravity, springs, or ...

 

ROTARY - round and round

 

SCREW - 1 a : a simple machine of the inclined plane type consisting of a spirally grooved solid cylinder and a correspondingly grooved hollow cylinder into which it fits

 

SHAFT - 3 : d : a commonly cylindrical bar used to support rotating pieces or to transmit power or motion by rotation

 

SIMPLE MACHINE - : any of various elementary mechanisms formerly considered as the elements of which all machines are composed and including the lever, the wheel and axle, the pulley, the inclined plane, the wedge, and the screw

 

SPRING - 4 : an elastic body or device that recovers its original shape when released after being distorted

 

STATICS - : mechanics dealing with the relations of forces that produce equilibrium among material bodies

 

TANG – A protrusion, often from a shaft where it is used to prevent rotation of an object attached to the shaft. 

 

THREAD -

 

TINKER -     N.  a person who repaired tools, pots, pans, etc.  Often called a tinkerer.

V. To repair, putter, etc

 

TORQUE - 1 : a force that produces or tends to produce rotation or torsion <an automobile engine delivers torque to the drive shaft>; also : a measure of the effectiveness of such a force that consists of the product of the force and the perpendicular distance from the line of action of the force to the axis of rotation

2 : a turning or twisting force

 

TRIANGULATION – The general term for the state that a triangular gusset or structure provides to a larger structure, i.e. to prevent lozenging or parallelograming a polygonal frame will be divided into triangles to provide this strength.

 

 

WATT - the absolute meter-kilogram-second unit of power equal to the work done at the rate of one joule per second or to the power produced by a current of one ampere across a potential difference of one volt : 1/746 horsepower

 

WEDGE – 1 : a piece of a substance (as wood or iron) that tapers to a thin edge and is used for splitting wood and rocks, raising heavy bodies, or for tightening by being driven into something

see inclined plane

 

WHEEL - 1 : a circular frame of hard (or firm-ctp) material that may be solid, partly solid, or spoked and that is capable of turning on an axle, (or is coupled to an axle which turns in a bearing of some sort. – ctp)

 

WORK - c : the transference of energy that is produced by the motion of the point of application of a force and is measured by multiplying the force and the displacement of its point of application in the line of action

 

BACK COVER

 

Ever wish you could incorporate movement into your artwork?  Or do you just wish you knew more about how devices from simple mechanisms to complex machines work?  Christopher Palmer lays it all out here in "Breaking Things Down - The Rudiments of Mechanics For Artists” Taking a deconstructive approach, the author guides the reader to take apart mechanisms with their mind's eye in order to study their component parts...what he calls the "basic elements" of machines and mechanisms.  All machines, from a simple pizza cutter to a jumbo-jet are made up of groups of these simple mechanisms and can be understood more easily when they can be looked at one piece at a time.  Through reading the book, the reader will build up a "mental toolkit" which they can easily draw from to apply what they’ve learned about the "basic elements” to gain a better understanding of the world of machines around them, and then to design, build, and perfect machines of their own design.

 

 

 

Mechanics and Kinetic Art

 

So just what is “mechanics” anyway?

While many will immediately think of a grease monkey at their local service garage, for our purposes mechanics encompasses the part of the world that machines are made from.  Pieces, parts, mechanisms, gizmos, doo-dads, thingamabobs…you know the kind of stuff.

 

It surrounds us every day, but most folks just pass it by, letting it blend into the background, and taking for granted that “it just works” while never trying to understand it any deeper.  This book was written to help the reader understand machinery, tools, and mechanisms, in other words “mechanics”, better.

 

And now what is “kinetic art”?

Put quite simply, kinetic means motion, therefore kinetic art is art objects that move.  We say “art objects” that move to distinguish kinetic art from other art objects such as paintings which typically do not move, and performance pieces which often do move, but can not rightly be called an “object”.

 

(This is a good spot to make first mention of two terms that will be used later on in the book.  They are dynamics and statics.  All that they refer to are things which move – dynamics – and things which are stationary – statics.  The see-saw in a playground fals under the realm of dynamics but the thing which holds it up off the ground falls under statics.)

 

And so how does Mechanics relate to Kinetics?

Kinetics deals with movement, and more specifically in this book with art that moves.  We use knowledge of the field of mechanics to build kinetic art.  Most mechanical devices can be broken down into their essential component parts (basic elements) in order to understand how they do what they do.  Once we understand the basic elements we can combine them in myriad ways to create new machines, tools, and kinetic artwork.