“Look inside. It’s amazing.”

That phrase could be Bill Hammack’s tagline. This week, it’s the piezoelectric crystal oscillator in a $9.99 digital watch from Target, a device so ubiquitous that it has become “ephemeralized,” as Bucky Fuller put it: Almost any device that runs on electricity is expected to include one. I knew how they worked, in a general way, before watching this video. But here’s one of the many things I did not know: The quartz crystal in the oscillator is only 3mm long and less than 1mm across, yet each one is individually tuned at the factory. Wanna know how they do it? Click away. [Thanks, Bill!]

More:

• Engineer Guy explains the world’s first transistor
• Engineer Guy vs. the flight data recorder
• How a coffee maker moves and heats water with no moving parts
• The mechanical elegance of the pop-can stay tab
• The mechanical glory of the IBM Selectric typewriter
• Rogue engineer steals departmental copier, tears it apart for fun