Make a Difference Engine No.3

Find. Adapt. Apply.

Today we're back on a light cowl project that got eclipsed by that blinking project. This is a remix of the design of the progenitor of the computer. Just imagine. In the past there were people who didn't even have computers. They had to do math with pencil and paper.

Working from a scan of the original engineering drawing #176 for the Difference Engine from Charles Babbage, we created a vector interpretation. Diagram 176 describes the gears that calculate the numbers while carrying out the method of finite differences. We expand the vectors 10x and layout our parts. A 3 inch diameter gear is almost 30 inches and at a scale to hang on the ceiling.

Here are the part layouts we've created in Aspire.

Even Figure Wheel

Even Sector

Odd Sector