Staude said:
JaggedSac said:
Working 3 digit LEGO Babbage Difference Engine (Computer)
A fully functional mechanical Babage Difference Engine style calculator made from LEGO Techic. It can compute tables of answers to 3 digits by turning a hand crank
Full size photo
I have built a working 3 digit Babbage style Difference Engine, in effect a mechanical calculator/computer made from LEGO Technic parts. It has over 200 gears, 24 shock absorbers, and thousands of other pieces. Details including more photographs and theory of operation at: http://acarol.woz.org It can evaluate any polynomial of the form aX^2 + bX + c, for x = 1, 2, 3, etc. Calculations are up to three digits. For example, the normal "test" polynomial I use is X^2. The machine will output: 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100, 121, etc. I am considering adding another digit column for four digit answers and adding another difference level so that it can evaluate cubic (X^3) equations. This would require doubling the number of rotor adders from four to eight. It stands about 18 inches tall and is about 25 inches wide. It takes a bit over 100 turns of the hand crank to compute an answer. That's about one answer every 40 seconds.
|
impressive but a little offtopic. The reason this was so awesome was because it was with the beta tools for a game.. it's basically the "level editor"
But yeah, pretty awesome :P got a video ?
|
Except that's not impressive. It should be really easy to make a calculator with the level editor unless it's been dumbed down or limited in some way.
I could make a simple one in level editors on similar computer games by just having a "Score A" a "Score B" and a Score C"... where C is the effect B has on A dependent on what symbol is on screen.
It'd take all of 5-10 minutes.... with no programmign knowledge needed.