21–30 of 54 posts
The material science discussion in these comments is fascinating. Never thought about how the contact point geometry matters so much. Diamond tip makes intuitive sense for hardness, but then you need something it can spin on without scratching...
There is a Japanese show that made a Scientist vs Engineers version to build the best Spinning Top: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q-hcidtjiM Awesome!
At around the end of the fidget spinner craze I thought "but what would it take to make it spin by its own?" And it turned out, not much. Just put one magnet at each of the three ends, and have some pulsating magnet near it (next to it, or under it hidden in some kind of base), and there! you have a basic electric motor that seems entirely magical.
It was a really fun experiment; I even toyed with doing a small production run but by the time I was almost ready the craze had passed.
Excellent! At around the end of the fidget spinner craze I thought "but what would it take to make it spin by its own?" And it turned out, not much. Just put one magnet at each of the three ends, and have some pulsating magnet near it (next to it, or under it hidden in some kind of base), and there! you have a basic electric motor that seems entirely magical. It was a really fun experiment; I even toyed with doing a…
this guy is super great but wow do the juvenile sexist comments he makes (over and over again, tripling down on them) detract from the overall value of the video. Would female engineering students really appreciate all that? I think not
For a real spinning top over engineered https://youtu.be/QLTsxXNekVE?si=S31kpZQHiYlUSedx
My mind immediately went towards Battlebots when I saw electronics getting involved. I wonder what else would need to be done to make this steerable over RC? There may be a lower weight class where some nicely CNC'ed 'Phantasm Orbs' can score reasonable points.
This already exists- there's a class of robot called "meltybrains" which spin the whole robot using one or more wheel, detect the speed of spinning with a gyro and modulate the speed of the wheels at different points in its' rotation in order to create translational movement. Since they effectively put all the weight allowance into the "weapon" they can be very effective. The additional complexity means that they are…
If you could develop a self-starting top capable of remote controlled translational movement you would get non-wheeled weight bonuses up to 2x in most competitions.