Category
From motors to networks, from clocks to presses, from robot arms to refrigerators: posts that open up the machines and systems we use every day and explain, with drawings you can play with and real numbers, why the parts are made the way they are.
NewestTechnology and Engineering
A processor takes billions of steps a second, yet it spends much of its time waiting for data. We explain the fetch-decode-execute cycle, the clock signal, registers and the layers of memory from cache to disk, with a workshop drawing where you can type in your own numbers.
Kuazara Bilim Ekibi11 min read
A factory robot arm brings its gripper to a point by turning six joints. Using an arm you can play with, we explain what a joint is, why there are exactly six (degrees of freedom) and how to work out where the gripper is from the joint angles (forward kinematics).
10 min read
From toy cars to windscreen wipers, small direct current motors turn everywhere. Using a motor you can play with, we explain the force a magnet puts on a current-carrying wire, the clever switch the commutator makes every half turn, and how voltage, speed, torque and back EMF are linked.
11 min read
We shift to an easy gear to ride a bike up a hill and to first gear to pull away in a car. A gearbox makes no power; it shares the motor's power between speed and torque. We explain gear ratios, the torque × speed balance and what happens inside when you change gear, with a gearbox to play with.
10 min read
The dark blue panel on a roof makes electricity without moving at all. We explain how a photon creates an electron–hole pair in silicon, how the p-n junction separates the pair, why half-volt cells are connected in series, and how the angle and the shadow of a single leaf change the power.
11 min read
How can a hand lever lift a hundred-kilogram load? We explain what pressure is, why a confined liquid passes pressure on equally in every direction, how a small and a large piston multiply force, and the price you pay for it: distance, worked out step by step.
9 min read
In a petrol engine the piston goes down and up while the crankshaft turns twice, completing the intake, compression, power and exhaust strokes. On an engine cut in half, we explain the crank and rod, the camshaft that runs the valves, the compression ratio and how a diesel differs.
10 min read
A fridge does not make cold; it takes heat from inside and carries it out of its back into the room. We meet the compressor, the condenser, the capillary tube and the evaporator one by one and follow the cycle in which the refrigerant takes in heat as it boils and gives it out as it condenses.
13 min read
The moment you tap a link, the page is split into hundreds of small packets; they travel by different paths, sometimes arrive out of order, and lost ones are sent again. We explain DNS, IP addresses, routers, TCP and delay with a sorting plant you can play with.
11 min read