The mechanism known formally as the Trammel of Archimedes (Wikipedia) has practical application, when fitted with a drawing or cutting tool, as an ellipsograph. Otherwise it is fascinating but generally useless, and these qualities have earned it a variety of approximately affectionate epithets: “do nothing machine,” “nothing grinder,” “BS grinder,” and “Kentucky do-nothing” are a few I’ve heard. Recently, I was thinking about building one as a gift, and found this great tutorial by Instructables user perry112358.
6 thoughts on “How-To: Trammel of Archimedes”
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I had one as a child that said BULL$HIT GRINDER on the bottom, and no one would tell me what it said! I wanted to learn to read just so I could find out.
I want to say “scottish wheel” but that’s wrong, although it led to an interesting link about a boat lift.
Now it’s driving me crazy, I know there’s another (serious) name for this mechanism, maybe from steam engine lore?
I believe you’re thinking of a scotch yoke.
But that is far from a useless mechanism :). It converts rotational motion to linear motion (or the reverse).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_yoke