smart people

June 26, 2006 1:13 AM

This class has surprisingly readable (albeit few) and informative reports about scientific principles and devices.
go into a folder and open the .html file. its old school style.
posted by dminor (3 comments total)

The reports are the ones linked from "How Things Work Reports (Beta)" - in case it wasn't clear...

This class was a three-week intro to what eventually became a full-semester course called How and Why Machines Work. (But it's known better as "2.000," read "two thousand.")

When I took the class a few years ago, the professor prefaced it the first day as being a hands-on class to explain how toasters work to students who were graduating and designing airplanes...

It's changed from year to year, but has involved projects like designing and building a gear pump, disassembling Furbies and sewing machines (n.b., you only get full credit if it works when you put it back together!), and designing Lego machines (e.g., my project was a Lego joystick for an asteroids-like game.)

Thanks, I hadn't thought about this in a long time...
posted by whatzit at 6:27 AM on June 26, 2006

It's like this book, or http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0895773538/qid=1151344520/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-6054112-0405750?s=books&v=glance&n=283155... only more so. I must have read these things hundreds of times. sigh...
posted by cubby at 10:55 AM on June 26, 2006

whoops. bad linking. that second book is here
posted by cubby at 10:57 AM on June 26, 2006