Seesaw with no effort

[Leafy]

The kid can pull himself up and down with little energy

The weight is 10000 lb(ten thousands)

A little pull or push would make the whole thing moves clockwise or counter

We can put 5 kids on there and it wouldn’t make a differ.

[JUBAT]

You know your idea brought to mind a simple idea. Stress the weight between 2 springs and have a latch system. Every 180 degrees release and catch. If released at the right point, would it recover itself so the cycle could repeat forever?

Thus seems like a prank I could get behind.

[Leafy]

It takes me one week to get it and it takes you one post. Lol

Another simple way is tell 5 kids to jump on it. Pull themselves up. Have 4 kids to jump down and generate electricity. 1 kid reset the swing. Repeat lol

[JUBAT]

My idea uses 2 springs and one weight. Your is one spring and a set of activator weights. Problem with using weighs to move a weight - something has got to be heavier than the other. Once centrally located weight with 2 opposing springs sounds good. Input some energy, then let the springs throw the weight back and forth.

You know, that could just be the solution. No fancy b.s...just latches, springs, and a weight. I like that.

Imagine releasing your weight at 9:00 so it gets to the other side around 4:00 once it travels across the wheel. Gravity assists it with it's travel over and down as it thumps against the descending side of a CW rotating wheel. As it falls, it compresses a spring just before it hits and latches. With a series of 4 or 8 weights, Just keep firing them at 9, capture at 4, over and over.

It's so simple, it just might work.

[Leafy]

Please don’t build this system. The spring store ton of energy so once it passed certain angles , you won’t able to stop the rotation due to the spring released it energy. It’s not practical, just a mental episode I have.

[JUBAT]

I've mentioned this spring and release mechanism before, but I often have wondered if Bessler's mysticism about it coupled with clues, books, diagrams, and all the failed inventions just hasn't served to over-complicate things.

Simply discharging a spring into a weight which is starting to fall anyway due to gravity is a fine way to recover the energy you trapped in a spring.

It's fits the bill on many different levels - don't shove it lest it grind to a halt. Simple arrangement. Harvesting the energy from gravity due to a falling weight into a spring. It's even the perfect solution to, "I found the answer where others had looked."

Bessler's talk of crossbars could be the very bar the weights slid on. Cylindrical weights could made to slide on crossbars. Cords and pulls would part of the triggering mechanism to release the weights. If you wanted it to keep rotating, you just kept releasing the weights at the right time and would have to regulate the speed lest it overran itself.

Above all - simple and direct. The trick is the catch and release mechanism (shotgun shoots and bow twangs) (allusion for discharge of a spring and reload of a spring).

All the time and effort people have put into this prank and they should be focusing on reliable catching and releasing of weights using springs.

Simple simple simple! Even Bessler said there wasn't much to it.

[Leafy]

Know what? Replace the kid with the side way storkbill. It’s over.

[Leafy]

Don’t forget about 1 lb lift 4 lb. This is a kid lifting 10,000 lb. Wagner was right and so was Bessler. Lol

[WaltzCee]

Don’t forget about 1 lb lift 4 lb. This is a kid lifting 10,000 lb. Wagner was right and so was Bessler. Lol

That must be one fat-assed child.

[Leafy]

Lol Waltz, I was going to say put 5 heavy kids on the seesaw but I have to practice refraining.

[WaltzCee]

Is this the sort of idea that might be scaled down a little, Leafy? For instance, could one use a can of corn suspended between a couple of bungees?

I'm not really following the scissor jack accuator. Does it rotate with the wheel? How does it fit in?

[WaltzCee]

I'm not really following the scissor jack accuator. Does it rotate with the wheel? How does it fit in?

I might be closer to the idea now, it looks like the scissor jack mechanism picks the can of corn up. That explains why the spring on the top is compressed & the one on the bottom is stretched.

Do I have that right?

[JUBAT]

LOL! I like the can of corn suspended between 2 springs analogy. I don't understand the lazy tongs either as they are drawn here. It looks to me like if that can of corn spins with the springs, the cords will get all tangled up.

I demand clarification! :)

I really like the simplicity of this though. A weight being driven about using springs and gravity. The spring assists the fall due to being charged as a result of the prior fall since waiting on gravity to do the work is just way too late. So discharging the banked impact force into the current fall in theory would be enough to keep things going.

The critical point is the triggering work - catching and releasing at the proper time.

I've wanted to build a wheel that used electronic triggers based on the sensors used in drones and smartphones. Batteries would be kept in the middle and the triggers would be solenoids. My problem is I'm not well versed in modern sensors - I'd be more comfortable with mercury switches, but then due to their weight, I'd also have to keep them in the middle. This way of doing things also draws way too much current.

I think tiny lazy tongs make for great, precisely timed trigger releases. The fall of a small weight creates a large pulling force that can be used to release a trigger holding back a spring. Since Bessler didn't want people seeing his weights, I bet the ends of them had some kind of a latch or something that would have revealed a critical aspect of the build.

If you imagine crossbars with cans of corn sliding on them, the cans of corn would settle with all the weight in the bottom of the wheel. So a spring to give it a push would help kick it past the keeling point. The more powerful the spring, heavier the can of corn, and the greater the fall would create more energy to input into the spring below. You just have to give time for the can of corn to fall the distance. The only bad thing I see is if you have time for the can of corn to fall the distance. Maybe that's where the evil root of greed comes in. You don't need it to fall the entire way, just a heavy weight falling a slight distance. Different recipes are in order.

I like this can-of-corn-and-springs build. It's so simple, so direct, removes the weight from one side and moves it to the other. What a great prank!

[Leafy]

On the left we have just weight and spring. Let it travel a complete circle to see the torque profile. The bottom is the heaviest so it’s bottom heavy and symmetric on left and right. If somehow we push it on one side for the duration of 180.

[JUBAT]

Oh the can of corn isn't the source of the imbalance. The can of corn comes down and activates the lazy tongs. I'm not a fan of using lazy tongs as the source of the imbalance. If this is a cw rotating wheel, then I assume you are attempting to center that big weight by the springs. I dunno...I think this one would keel.