Make a Difference Engine No. 3

Introducing Make a Difference Engine No. 3

In the early 1800’s a brilliant mathematician, Charles Babbage (1791-1871), designed a machine that serves as the progenitor of the modern computer. By applying the method of finite differences, a Babbage Engine calculates the values of a polynomial using only addition.

When he died, his machine had never been completed. Many of his small experimental devices and notebooks have survived. But, only in the last few decades has his work been studied in detail.

“In 1985 the Science Museum in London set out to construct a working Difference Engine No. 2 built faithfully to Babbage’s original designs dating from 1847-9. The project was led by the then Curator of Computing, Doron Swade. The purpose of the project was both to memorialize Babbage’s work in time for 200th anniversary, in 1991, of Babbage’s birth…” View Source

Due to the work by Mr. Swade and his team, digital images of the original drawings had been created. Babbage’s design of the crucial display mechnisms were located in Diagram 176 where the figure and sector wheels interact. That source bitmap photo was manually re-interpreted into a vector-based image.

As vectors, the scale was increased ten times, converted to toolpaths, and cut from plywood sheets by a robot. The resulting layers of wood were combined, forming the four pieces of this sculpture.

Status

All four pieces are assembled and being primed. Priming with a brush is slow in addition to drying time.

Micro Site

To learn more, we have created a micro site at http://made3.r26d.com.