Sunday, March 21, 2010

How to Make a Three-Pendulum Rotary Harmonograph

How to Make a Three-Pendulum Rotary Harmonograph: "A harmonograph is a mechanical device that uses swinging pendulums to draw pictures, believed to be originally invented in 1844 by Scottish mathematician Hugh Blackburn. There are other types of harmonographs, but this 3-pendulum rotary type gives a wide variety of pleasant results, and is fairly easy to build once you've settled on a design and have acquired the appropriate materials and tools. This is a great project to do with kids and can result in endless experiments creating new types of geometric designs."