[HN Gopher] Leonardo Da Vinci's Self-Powered Cart (2021)
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Leonardo Da Vinci's Self-Powered Cart (2021)
Author : areoform
Score : 134 points
Date : 2023-12-22 01:21 UTC (21 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (selmec.org.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (selmec.org.uk)
| LegitShady wrote:
| would have liked to see a video of it actuating
| stavros wrote:
| "Automobile" here might not mean "car". Rather, something that
| literally moves under its own power.
| signa11 wrote:
| just hyphenate at the right place, and the meaning spills out.
| OJFord wrote:
| Well, along those lines, 'car' just means 'carriage', so if
| there's a problem with calling it a car it's that it was a
| _cart_ , not a seated-people-carrying device (not typically
| or in a way that would be called a carriage anyway) - not
| that it doesn't resemble modern carriages. (IMO.)
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Fellow grownup geeks I'd worked with in the U.S. didn't know what
| the term ''Meccano'' meant, but sure remembered what "Erector
| Sets" were. Same product. I remember that our home first aid kit
| came in handy when I was building the impractical with Meccano.
|
| This da Vinci example is a true celebration of Meccano.
| saghm wrote:
| As someone born in the 90s, I've only heard the term "erector
| set" maybe 2-3 times ever (I feel like maybe I remember it
| mentioned in a Calvin and Hobbes comic, or something of that
| nature), so I have no knowledge about which term was more
| common, but one of them kind of sounds risque to me...did the
| word "erect" not have that connotation back then? It's not hard
| for me to imagine kids (or even adults, really) giggling every
| time someone used the term "erector set", so I'd expect that to
| be something people remembered more than "Meccano", which to me
| sounds like the name of a coffee brand or something.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| Different times, so I doubt there was much blushing.
| dharmon wrote:
| The 1996 movie Jack with Robin Williams had a joke playing
| off this. I don't remember the joke exactly, but one of the
| boys asks Jack if he's ever had an erection, and he says
| something like "No, but I was hoping to get one for my
| birthday."
| freetinker wrote:
| It's exactly like you imagine. The connotation of the word
| hasn't changed much. I can confirm the giggling (personal
| experience).
| monitron wrote:
| From a Firesign Theatre album, 1969:
|
| "That's okay, I brought an Erector Set."
|
| "Throw a towel over it!"
|
| "Do some pushups, Pablo, Maybe it'll go away."
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Fascinating the lengths to which people will attempt to fill in
| the gaps or correct "errors" to make a semi-working modern model
| appear physically similar to a paper sketch of a fanciful idea. I
| think I sort of get it: at some point the challenge becomes a
| thing unto itself.
|
| But Leonardo was a genius precisely because his insights predated
| the experimental and iterative science spirit that came later,
| and which were necessary to produce practical technology. Can't
| we just accept that his helicopter designs suck, his submarines
| were impractical, and his car was nonfunctional? They are still
| amazing and fascinating. Why contort or correct the designs to
| make them work?
| soperj wrote:
| > Why contort or correct the designs to make them work?
|
| Because the end goal is something functional. If Leonardo was
| actually building it, he would have done the same.
| sph wrote:
| A cynic and contrarian on the Internet, arguing that what is
| universally praised is overrated? What a unique phenomenon.
|
| Sorry, a weird dude designing helicopters and tanks some 500
| years before their invention, among his incredible research in
| other scientific fields, is nothing short of remarkable for
| anybody, unless you are a professional internet cynic, which is
| as mundane as air itself.
| andrepd wrote:
| He literally said
|
| >They are still amazing and fascinating.
|
| Doesn't look like cynic or contrarian.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| I don't think making someone a legend is the best way to
| celebrate an actual human being.
|
| Leonardo da Vinci was human, he had flaws, he wasn't always
| right, and I think these are important things to point out in
| order to make the real achievements stand out.
|
| Leonardo's flying machines were crap, which is to be expected
| when basic understanding of aerodynamics came hundreds of
| years after. Helicopters in particular are deceptively
| complex. And it would be a shame to put them on the same
| level as mechanisms he designed that actually worked.
|
| I think it sets unreasonable expectations if you don't
| recognize the flaws of great men. And especially in science,
| being wrong happen, and it is not even a flaw.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Leonardo was surrounded by practical technology developed by an
| experimental and innovative science spirit. How else do you
| think people were able to make towers, cathedrals, dyes, looms,
| cannons, dikes, bridges, ships, aqueducts, windmills,
| cranes...?
| jacquesm wrote:
| Functional things emerge from iterating over non-functional
| things. You have to start somewhere.
|
| The first trial I made at a windmill blew apart in the first
| storm and you might not even have recognized it. Back to
| school, 6 months of learning, lots of math and engineering
| later: a scale model 1:2 to check if I got any better at it,
| that one worked but produced too little power for its size but
| we figured out why. Scale that up to 1:1 and it worked like a
| charm and powered our house for a couple of years. Without the
| failures there would be no success.
| andrepd wrote:
| >Functional things emerge from iterating over non-functional
| things. You have to start somewhere.
|
| Isn't this precisely what GP said?
| ListeningPie wrote:
| Yes, but here you get a little anecdote. Similar to
| Calvin's dad's wooden escalator story.
| ajb wrote:
| Sure, but the point is that unfortunately a lot of the
| writing about Da Vinci doesn't locate his sketches correctly
| on this continuum. Often it is assumed that they all already
| worked, due to his (perfectly deserved) reputation as a
| polymathic genius.
| xtiansimon wrote:
| "...at some point the challenge becomes a thing unto itself."
|
| Erector/Meccano set is a solution waiting for a problem.
|
| And you don't get to the front of the internet making a daft
| version of Leonardo Da Vinci.
| alentred wrote:
| I remember the time, quite a long ago, when I have visited
| Leonard Da Vinci's house (museum today), where many of his
| original drawings and modern replicas where exhibited, and I have
| discovered many more apparatus than I knew he imagined.
|
| I was _very much inspired_ by human capacity to imagine the
| things that don 't exist, and often couldn't even be created by
| the time they are imagined. Da Vinci's machines, first computers
| (Babbage's "analytical engine"), modern works like fusion power
| or quantum computers for example. And as new technology is
| invented and new discoveries are made we continue challenging
| ourselves.
|
| Having said that I am certain humans are not the only ones able
| to do so. So I will live this open-ended like this, just a
| tribute to the marvelous complexity of the intelligent life on
| Earth.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It is inspiring. And many times when building things my most
| recurring thought is "I wonder how many other people have this
| exact same thing sitting in their garage". And far less
| frequently "How strange that nobody else thought of this
| before".
|
| Da Vinci was essentially a 'maker' but he didn't have todays
| tools, and you have to wonder what he would have been able to
| imagine with that kind of access that we today haven't seen yet
| and then go do that!
|
| At the same time: in the 1600's almost everything related to
| technology was still in the future and Da Vinci didn't even
| know about the possibilities of some of the fundamentals of
| technology yet. So without much knowledge about electricity,
| magnetism (though there was some of this it was very
| rudimentary) and other 'common' knowledge nowadays he was able
| to see very far indeed but only on those parts of science that
| were well illuminated at the time.
| zabzonk wrote:
| to be pedantic, da vinci lived in the 1400s to 1500s.
| tiku wrote:
| I often find it weird that we don't have more devices powered by
| gravity / heavy weight, except our old school scales for weighing
| our bodies.
| berkes wrote:
| In order to store any significant energy, you'd need great
| heights or giant mass. Both rather impractical.
|
| That said, one of the oldest energy captures is a watermill.
| It's powered by gravity.
| mdiesel wrote:
| Counterbalances are in use all over the place, look at lifts
| (/elevators) if they didn't have the weights they'd need much
| much more energy to move the system. Almost everything that
| works with weights+heights will have some kind of
| counterbalance system.
|
| Hydroelectric energy storage is one example that is hugely
| successful, albeit requiring geography to help. We also use
| water towers in some places to maintain pressure in pipes with
| the hydraulic head.
|
| On a smaller scale, it's more space efficient to use weights to
| store rotating energy as a flywheel.
|
| That said, stored energy in a system isn't always a desirable
| property, generally it means more careful designs are needed so
| that the system defaults to safe.
| sho_hn wrote:
| There are many mechanisms powered by the Huygens weight drive +
| a governor, for example many clocks.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maintaining_power
| a1o wrote:
| Here is the cool interactive blog
|
| https://ciechanow.ski/mechanical-watch/
| Physkal wrote:
| In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, you come across many ot
| Leonardo's war machines. As an assassin you befriend Leonardo and
| must destroy his blueprints as well as any prototypes the Borgia
| created. Very historical game worthy of checking out.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Sir Terry had Leonard of Quirm[0], who The Patrician kept
| locked in a back room, producing war machines.
|
| [0] https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Leonard_of_Quirm
| tibanne wrote:
| For anyone else wondering:
|
| Leonardo da Vinci's self-powered cart, often considered one of
| the earliest forms of a robotic vehicle, was powered by a coiled
| spring mechanism. Here's how it works:
|
| Coiled Spring Mechanism: The cart was powered by a pair of coiled
| springs, which were the main source of propulsion. These springs
| were wound up manually, storing potential energy.
|
| Gear and Pulley System: Once the springs were wound, the stored
| energy was transferred through a system of gears and pulleys.
| This system was designed to control and direct the movement of
| the cart.
|
| Steering Mechanism: Da Vinci's cart also featured a programmable
| steering mechanism. By setting pegs into a series of gears, the
| operator could predetermine the cart's path, allowing it to turn
| and move in specific directions.
|
| No External Forces: The cart did not require any external forces
| like animals or humans to push or pull it once the springs were
| wound. The energy stored in the springs was enough to move it
| forward.
|
| Early Example of Automation: This invention is significant as it
| represents an early example of automated transportation,
| displaying Da Vinci's advanced understanding of mechanics and
| engineering.
|
| Leonardo's self-powered cart was far ahead of its time,
| showcasing his genius in mechanical invention and his ability to
| think centuries ahead of the technological capabilities of his
| era.
| csdreamer7 wrote:
| Why is this being downvoted? Seems informative to me.
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