spring

Robert Hooke (1625 – 1703) was employed as an assistant to Robert Boyle, for whom he built the vacuum pumps used in Boyle’s gas law experiments. more…

Hooke’s Law: relating the force pulling back on a spring is inversely proportional to the distance pulled from rest.

F = kx Hooke’s Law explained the science behind coil springs.

• Designed, improved or invented many scientific instruments used in the Seventeenth Century.
• First to replace pendulums in clocks with springs.
• Invented the compound microscope and gregorian compound telescope
• Improved or invented the wheel barometer, hydrometer, hygrometer and anemometer.
• Coined the term ‘cells’ for biology.
• Invented the universal joint, the iris diaphragm, and an early prototype of the respirator
• Invented the anchor escapement and the balance spring, which made more accurate clocks possible

Linear, rigid > soft, dynamic

Soft engineering (video 15:54) – involves manipulating and constraining the air pressure in flexible materials. The idea is already present in nature – Saul compares a bluefin tuna and a shark. The tuna’s tail wing is bony but the shark’s cartilage is lighter and stiffer. The shark can tune its stiffness to swim fast at high pressure and be very maneuverable at low pressures. Griffith shows examples of soft engineered robots gripping eggs, walking under walls, and pumping blood through a heart.

• Coil spring Slinky toys – A spring can be defined to be an elastic member which exerts a resisting force when its shape is changed. Most springs are assumed linear and obey Hooke’s Law. Slinky (animation) has been a favorite with kids and engineers alike. history but it all starts with Hooke’s coil spring.

That’s engineering

• elastic potential energy – potential energy stored as a result of the compression or stretching of an elastic object, such as the stretching of a spring. This stored up energy can be released and turned into kinetic energy.
• Internal Energy

Engineering ideas

• spring, elastic, stress, strain, elastic limit, cell,

Do it
Here are some challenges for you to work on…

• Mousetrap car – start with a conventional mousetrap for the spring action.

Learn more…

• Springsto Illustrate Internal Energy and Degrees of Freedom – visualization for the many ways that energy can be distributed within a system.
• Robert Hooke (1625 – 1703) – In addition to the air pump, Hooke built some of the earliest Gregorian telescopes, observed the rotations of Mars and Jupiter … He investigated the phenomenon of refraction, deducing the wave theory of light, and was the first to suggest that matter expands when heated and that air is made of small particles separated by relatively large distances. He performed pioneering work in the field of surveying and map-making and was involved in the work that led to the first modern plan-form map, though his plan for London on a grid system was rejected in favour of rebuilding along the existing routes. He also came near to an experimental proof that gravity follows an inverse square law, and hypothesised that such a relation governs the motions of the planets, an idea which was subsequently developed by Newton. more…
• Robert Hooke, also.., …, coil springs
• coil springs