Engineering
Astrolabe: a mechanical sky computer
Sight a star, measure its altitude and rotate a brass sky map to recover local sidereal time. Compare a matching latitude plate with the wrong plate.
In development
Makarov Engineering Suite
Working mechanisms, manufacturing processes and machines: from an astrolabe and cable robot to a hydrofoil and a CNC mill.
106 modules · Page 4 / 6 · 54 planned
This Suite is still in development. These are implemented experiments, not a released product.
Contact & licences
Engineering
Jacquard loom: a pattern becomes a mechanism
Punched cards choose which warp threads rise. Follow the shuttle and see each pick become part of the woven pattern.
Engineering
Mechanical calculator: carrying a number
Turn a stepped-drum calculator and watch decimal wheels add or subtract, including carry and borrow between columns.
Engineering
Canal lock: lifting a boat with water
Fill and drain a lock chamber, equalise the water levels and open the interlocked gates to move a boat between reaches.
Engineering
Sailing across the wind
Adjust the sheet and rudder while apparent wind, sail pressure and the keel combine to move a sailboat.
Engineering
Funicular: two cars balance a mountainside
Compare passenger loads and watch the shared cable, traction motor and regenerative braking move two cars along an incline.
Engineering
CNC milling machine
Mill a pocket into an aluminium block: the end mill slots down the middle and then runs loops out to the walls, driven by servo axes and a spindle of limited power. Compare a shallow and a deep pass, watch the engagement and the force jump in the corners, and lower the spindle's power until it slows or stalls, then switch on the adaptive feed.
Engineering
Turning lathe
Turn a stepped shaft from a 60 mm steel bar on an engine lathe: the carriage feeds the tool along the turning bar pass after pass while the spindle slows under each cut. Change the feed, the depth and the nose radius to compare roughness, power and time, and take a deep pass at high speed to stall the motor.
Engineering
Filament 3D printer
Print two pillars joined by a bridge and a thin tower beside them, and watch the melt laid road by road, the free strands sag until they stiffen and the tower's top stay soft. Change the flow and the speed to see the bead swell or thin, switch the fan off or widen the span to make the bridge droop, and set a minimum layer time to let the tower cool.
Engineering
Laser cutting table
Cut a part out of a steel sheet with a laser: the beam melts the steel through, the gas blows the melt out of the kerf and the head follows the contour. Raise the feed until the cut stalls, make the head dwell at the corners, try a second pass, and watch where the beam's energy goes.
Engineering
Injection molding
Inject molten plastic into the mold of a ruler and watch the two flow fronts run from the gate while a frozen skin grows from the cold steel. Move the gate, cool the mold, lower the pressure limit or slow the screw until the gate freezes shut and leaves a short shot, then hold, cool and eject the part.
Engineering
Metal rolling mill
Roll a hot steel slab between two work rolls and watch the force, the torque and the stand's spring set the thickness that comes out. Close the gap until the drive stalls or the rolls refuse the slab, lubricate the rolls, cool the slab, and compare one heavy pass with two light ones.
Engineering
Glassblowing studio
Blow a gather of hot glass on a pipe into a bubble while it cools: set the pressure, keep the pipe turning and carry it into the glory hole to reheat. Compare a cold and a hot gather, stop turning to watch the bubble droop, and blow a gather with a thin end with and without the cooling jet.
Engineering
Pottery wheel
Pull the wall of an opened lump of clay up into a tall cylinder, pull after pull, watching the wall thin and the wheel slow under the hands. Use more water to see the soaked wall twist off, open a bowl and speed the wheel up to fling its rim, and try a softer clay or dry hands.
Engineering
Sewing machine
Sew a lockstitch seam in slow motion: the needle carries the thread down, the rotary hook catches its loop under the plate, and the take-up lever pulls the stitch tight while the feed dog moves the cloth. Retime the hook to miss stitches, unbalance the tensions to pull the lock to one face, compare short and long stitches, and press the pedal lightly on thick denim until the motor stalls.
Engineering
Offset printing press
Run the paper web through three printing units and bring magenta and yellow onto cyan with the phase trims. Then change the web tension, ramp the press up faster, open the magenta ink key, switch to heavy paper or splice a new reel, and watch the colours drift with the paper's stretch and settle again.
Engineering
Combine harvester
Harvest a strip of wheat and follow the crop from the header through the drum, the straw walkers and the sieves into the grain tank while every loss is counted. Drive faster in a heavy crop until the walkers lose grain and the drum chokes, set the drum, the concave gap and the fan, and unload before the tank spills.
Engineering
Subsea cable laying
Pay a subsea cable out over the stern of a cable ship and match the payout to the ship's speed, watching the tension, the angle of descent and where the cable touches the seabed. Speed the ship up or stop it, hold the cable back by tension instead of speed, change to a heavy power cable, and open a trench across the route to see the cable span it or lie on its floor.
Engineering
Precision wafer stage
Step a 300 mm wafer under the lens field by field and watch the nanometre error settle on the console before each exposure. Compare the trapezoid with the S-curve, switch off the feedforward, soften the flexure until the loop rings and lower the bandwidth, load a heavier table and tune the controller to it, and shake the floor.
Engineering
Telescope tracking mount
Slew the alt-azimuth telescope to a star and keep its image on the camera's crosshair as the sky turns, while the worms' backlash, their periodic error and the wind push it away. Let a star pass near the zenith to see the azimuth drive run out of speed, carry a star across the meridian with the encoder on the motor, and raise the loop's bandwidth against the gusts.
Some modules belong to more than one Suite. Shared experiments have one description here.