
The slinky machine: a slinky escalator - bpolania
http://woodgears.ca/toys/slinky.html
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rkroondotnet
I love that Matthias is getting some love on Hacker News.

His home page is one of those amazing corners of the internet I really enjoy
revisiting.

And as a fun way to pass time I also like his project
[http://chartgame.com/](http://chartgame.com/)

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hmhrex
I had never heard of this guy before, and I'm completely blown away by his
work! Especially the fact that he uses more wood to create tools to be more
efficient. I might have to get a bigger basement...

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LeonardA-L
There was a kickstarter for a Never Ending Slinky Machine, if you want a more
portable thing that you could put on your desktop.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mISz-
_ahvh4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mISz-_ahvh4)

But their website (creatables.co) seems down at the moment.

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dpflan
This looks like it could be a good project for Science Olympiad. The
discussions and elucidation of failure are useful and touch on the theme of
supporting failure and curiosity that is being discussed in this recent top HN
submission [1.].

This project is fun yet cynical - from the author: "But, one thing I’ve
learned is useless crap on YouTube gets a lot of views."

[1.]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10044438](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10044438)

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StavrosK
I wonder how far it could go with a camera regulating the speed according to
how far behind or ahead the slinky was. Probably 140 steps, still.

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mhb
See his follow-up for discussion of that and other issues:
[http://woodgears.ca/toys/slinky2.html](http://woodgears.ca/toys/slinky2.html)

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MatthiasWandel
It had initially been my intention to have a camera and regulate it, but once
I realized how hard it was to keep it going reliably, I decided not to bother
with that. If a slinky slinks, and nobody is watching, does it matter? And if
someone is watching, it's fun to be doing the cranking to keep it going :)

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leni536
> If a slinky slinks, and nobody is watching, does it matter?

Man, asking all the hard questions. It reminds me of the "If a tree falls in a
forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" question. Maybe
you could live stream it though.

Also note that there are juggling machines that are stable without any active
control [1]. Designing a self stabilizing slinky escalator could be really
hard though (if not impossible).

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj36Z5ZIC6Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj36Z5ZIC6Q)

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violentvinyl
There is another video on his YouTube channel where he talks about design
considerations to make the Slinky slink more reliably.

Also, Hi Matthias! I'm a big fan of your YouTube videos, it's really great to
see one make it to HN (even if it wasn't linked directly to you).

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ColinWright
I see the link has been changed to point to the original source, instead of as
it was originally to a site that just ripped off the content.

Thank you mods.

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theophrastus
This is a delightful example of engineering! Now we need some physics genius
to provide the analysis of how/which fundamental slinky characteristics
determine its natural step rate:

    
    
        dstep/dt = f(length, width, mass, spring constant, ...)

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cwkoss
Matthais Wendel has some really cool projects, like the copy carver, a 'manual
cnc' if you will.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyNu8lpQI1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyNu8lpQI1g)

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yellowapple
Like him, I also do not sympathize with wasps, and thus take unhealthy amounts
of pleasure from watching videos of his wasp-sucking machines.

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ErikRogneby
What would you call those square axles? Gears, cogwheels and sprockets all
have teeth. The cube doesn't exactly have teeth... Come on logophiles, help me
out!

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0xdeadbeefbabe
I imagine the word for it has pejorated so much you can't really use it in
polite conversation.

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anotherevan
Argh. No RSS feed for his site. Want to follow.

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symmetricsaurus
Why not link to the original source[1] instead?

[1]
[http://woodgears.ca/toys/slinky.html](http://woodgears.ca/toys/slinky.html)

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MatthiasWandel
Yes, that would be the right thing to do. The article itself does link to my
work (it's my creation) but it's hardly highlighted, and near the top, where
nobody would look. I'm very disappointed in makezine. Just stealing stuff.
Could the link itself be changed to actually point at MY article?

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hotsy_botsy
Hey Matthias, taking the opportunity you say thank you. I look forward to your
videos each week and really enjoy your no non-sense approach to wood working.

Thanks for all the videos, especially the dresser ones.

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mrtron
Thanks from me too.

My wife and I (both uwaterloo! EE and CS respectively) watch your videos
together. She has done quite a bit of wood working, and really enjoys your
pantorouter.

In a few weeks, after a decade of waiting, we will finally have a shop to work
in. Can't wait to do some projects with her.

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f00644
This guy officially has no life whatsoever.

