Posted by MrTim (64.12.96.9) on October 20, 2003 at 16:35:25:
In Reply to: Re: Hal McGoldrick's gravity wheel posted by Jonathan on October 20, 2003 at 02:24:24:
: Very interesting! By tomorrow I will have made an attempt to make a model of this with legos and will report what I find out. What have you done with this idea so far?
Not much. It showed promise, but the efficiency was horrible, as far as trying to overbalance a wheel on one side. (I built a whole new wheel, slide tracks and all, just to try it out.) Making the weight pull itself inward was gratifying though. The longer 'L' is, the further apart the weights are at the 9 & 3 positions. Another feature was that as the descending weight swung out (fast when it got going, loud at impact when it reached maximum extension), it exerted leverage along the slide track instead of 'wasting' the mass in 'free-fall'.
It's an interesting application of weights-and-levers, but it didn't go anywhere.