Mechanics & Machines

16 interactive videos. Watch each one, then try the idea live. Free, no account.

The Six Simple Machines

Every complex machine = these 6 ideas combined. Force × distance, always conserved.

Long arm + short arm = force multiplication. Three classes. Your body uses all of them.

Trade strength for rope. Block & tackle lets 1 sailor lift 4 sailors' worth.

Small drives big = slow but strong. Big drives small = fast but weak. Teeth count decides.

All 6 simple machines on wheels. The most efficient form of human transport ever invented.

A ramp lets you trade easy-but-far for hard-but-short. Same total work either way.

An inclined plane on the move. Push it forward, it pushes material apart.

A screw is an inclined plane wrapped around a cylinder. Each turn multiplies force.

Two cylinders locked together. Trade rotation distance for force — or strength for speed.

Simple, compound, planetary, chain — how machines multiply force without growing huge.

Engines want a happy rpm. Wheels need wildly different speeds. The transmission translates.

Turn rotation 90°, or self-lock at huge ratios. Where normal gears can't go.

Time is what oscillates. Pendulums, crystals, atoms — same idea, three different speeds.

Rotation into precisely-timed motion. Engine valves, music boxes, sewing machines.

Rigid sticks pivoting on pins. Wipers, swings, bicycles, robot arms — all four-bar magic.

Forward okay. Backward NOPE. The world's most useful mechanical word: NO.