Algodoo

Hi,

This is a model of a Watt Beam Engine. A beam engine is one of the first steam engines. On the left is a piston: imagine steam pressure drives the piston up. The piston pushes on a beam -- a lever -- which pushes on a planet gear on the right. The planet gear drives the sun gear. The sun gear would drive machines, such as a pump.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt_engine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_and_planet_gear

Also notice the Watt`s Linkage on the left:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_motion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WattParallelMotion.jpg
(A clever way of keeping the piston going straight up and down while
connected to a rocking beam.)


The gears come from my new gear making utility for Phun:
http://www.users.on.net/~ccormie/other/Phun/gearmk-1.0.0.zip

It`s a simple windows program that creates gear phunlets:
http://www.users.on.net/~ccormie/other/Phun/screenshot.png

Cheers,
Camacan