Model engineering on BBC2

Dear all,

some of you will have seen Royal Holloway's steam-driven Babbage Difference Engine designed and constructed by my good friend and colleague Dr Piers Plummer. The machine was awarded a prize by SMEE in 2019, and it also formed the centrepiece of our British Society for the History of Science Great Exhibitions prize in 2018. It is mostly constructed from 3D printed sintered nylon, with laser cut steel frames and a few stock bevel gears. It represents a 4x6 fragment of Babbage's Difference Engine 2, which is an 8x31 machine.

I popped up on BBC2 last night running the machine. It's powered by a Stuart No.9 running from a gas fired boiler - it can be coal fired but we didn't want to set the smoke detectors off...

Here's a link to the programme - our bit starts 40 minutes in.

**LINK**

There is a more explanatory video on Youtube:

**LINK**

Adrian

Edited By Adrian Johnstone on 26/05/2020 11:08:43

I assume this is the Codebreakers programme and shall watch it over lunch. Thanks for the tip!

No, Monkman and Seagull’s Genius Guide to Britain

Adrian,

That is a great model. I would so love to spend some quality time with that so I could figure out how it actually works. All moves to fast to follow.

Great name by the way

Adrian

Yes I saw the programme and found the steam driven Babbage fascinating to watch, very well done all those involved in it.

Edited By V8Eng on 26/05/2020 13:40:34

Thanks - something for tomorrow's lunch break then!

The Codebreakers was nonetheless worth watching.

Splendid little feature, Adrian

Thanks for sharing the link

MichaelG.

Hi Adrian, very interesting, although I've seen those in the Science Museum, but still don't understand how they work, but then I haven't ever really studied them, very good presentation.

As an aside, in the cement feature of the programme, during the time they went to the factory, it reminded me of a visit I had with others and the lecturers to a rotary kiln of the same type during a Rotary Kiln Maintenance seminar, and boy was that really hot. We had to have just about all our body covered with clothing which included hard hat, safety glasses and face mask.

Regards Nick.

I just found this youtube play list that explains how the machine works. **LINK**

Adrian

That's fascinating, Adrian.

I'm sure Martin and Diane would be interested in some information for Model Engineer!

Neil