Solo [ED]A Gaze at a Gadget

[Crylon Stonecraft]

2 Summer 520 Heading out early on another summer morning, Crylon headed to the sawmill. The Demesne had its own small sawmill, a place where raw wood went in and planks and cut wood came out for use in building. The person who ran it was Sona, someone Crylon had worked with quite a few times in the past. Being a builder Crylon felt he got along better with her than he did with other humans who did not understand the joy of building and creating. To an Isur such a thing was intrinsic in who they were, whereas with humans... Not so much. He had however over the last few seasons grown curious about the sawmill itself. He understood buildings, constructing and designing them as an Architect. But his buildings were static, they did not move or do anything beyond some doors and windows and the like. But this building was active, it did something. The particulars of how that worked was beyond him which left him curious how it was done. Waving as he approached Crylon got the woman's attention. She was working within the mill, pulling and pushing on things and working long levers which he did not understand. “Sona! How is do?” Still focused on her work Sona continued to pull and twist and push pieces for a chime or so before she seemed satisfied and came to a stop in her actions. "Crylon, hey. What are you up to today?" Motioning at the mill Crylon paused for a moment, gathering his words. “Ah, was wonder. Want know, what do with make mill? Know build place, but not one move. What is do, or need?” With a smile Sona turned to Crylon, before walking over to a chest next to a small desk. Big enough to let one unroll a sheet of paper or examine such, but not much more. "We've known each other how long, seasons, and you've never asked me about that before? Figured you weren't interested if you hadn't asked me before." Scratching at the side of his nose Crylon frowned as he considered her words. “Not thought of fore, but also... Busy other thing. Today, not much do, have time. If show, tell, like hear.” Continuing to dig through the chest Sona came back up with a handful of tubes of paper, some inside cases. Sorting through them she picked one in a case, took it out, and unrolled it across the desk. "I'm just playing, no offense taken by you not asking before. Just thought it was funny. Anyways, this is the plans for the mill. Copied them down myself. I've seen some of your drawings for buildings. This is kind of like that, but a little different. Since like you said, this building moves. This is all gears and things, machines. Input power on one side, the machine works that power, and outputs it in the way you designed it to. Its called Gadgeteering. Its all about making up such machines, designing them, building the actual things, and maintaining or fixing them. Kind of like with your buildings. If your interested I could show you more." Crylon nodded, interested by the designs and the explanation of things. “Yes please."” WC: 536

[Crylon Stonecraft]

Going back into the chest Sona unrolled a mostly empty piece of parchment. Then she began drawing, talking as she did. "Alright so I explained to you the basics of what Gadgeteering does or is. But the first thing you should learn is the six simple machines. They are used in basically everything. Its all about how you combine them and use them, and knowing which ones and what you need to make what. Not every one gets used all the time, but any machine will include at least one." Crylon watched as she one by one drew them out, explaining each one. "First and one of the simplest is the lever. Its basically a beam, like this, with a hinge or something it balances or turns on. Like think of it this way. You drop a plank over a rock. At its most basic, that is a lever. You apply pressure or weight to one side, downward, which will apply the same pressure upward on the other side. But depending on the length of each side, it will be applied differently. A heavier weight on a shorter end, might balance against a lighter weight on a longer end. The more length you have to work with." Handing the quill to Crylon she indicated for him to copy what she had drawn. "So say you need to lift a wagon. The wheel came off, so you need to hold up one end to get a new one on. Are you gonna just lift it up with brute strength? No. So you could use a lever. Get a hinge like... There, yeah draw it there. With a solid plank over it. And the end, the short one, you put under the side. Then on the far end of the long side, you stand or drop some bricks or something, something heavy. That would lift up the end of the wagon. Got it?" Crylon finished his simple depiction, having apparently designed his first machine. Albeit a very simple one, but technically he had designed it. Even if only by copying Sona's own, along with her explanation and direction. "So the hinge, or fulcrum, is what balances it all. Then the bar or plan or whatever, is the length of the lever. If you want to figure out beforehand the balance, that needs math. And physics and stuff. But you can also just figure it out by trail and error, add weight to one side or the other till its in balance or lifting the other side. Make sense?" Crylon nodded, watching as she took the quill back and began drawing a few more items next to the first ones. "Another exampe would be say... A wheelbarrow. It uses another thing also, which we'll get too later, but it uses the lever to help lighten the load. The wheel is at one end, and you lift the arms at the other end. In that one the fulcrum, the pivot, is at the other end, the wheel. Also... A hammer, in a different way. You have the long handle, with the shorter head at the end. The lets you apply the pressure more efficiently onto another thing than if you only had a straight arm." Crylon was a bit shocked to hear this explanation, as he had thought he understood a hammer. Now apparently it was also a lever. “Did not know that...” WC: 569

[Crylon Stonecraft]

Smiling at his comment, Sona motioned at the parchment and began drawing again. "I'm not surprised, your a builder not a gadgeteer. So you wouldn't know that. I imagine you'll run into some stuff you've heard of before, but in new ways and explanations. And maybe a deeper explanation. Like the lever, did you know all that about how a wheelbarrow worked?" Crylon shook his head, quick to admit he had learned something. “Is say... Is make sense. Once explain. But afore, not know. Like wheelbarrow. Is seen, use, but not thought about how work.” With a smile at her attentive student Sona turned back to the paper as she drew more. "Next one which is pretty simple as well, I'll do them in increasing complexity, is the inclined plane. Like... A ramp. Its a flat surface, but held at an angle. With a low end, and a high end. Depending on the angle, or how steep it is, it'll be easier to raise the weight than just lifting it upward. Like say... In a house... Rather than stairs, you could do a ramp. And that would be easier to move weight, yourself or say a wheelbarrow, up it. At least compared to just lifting it up the height, say with steps or the like." Crylon nodded, taking the offered quill and copying the simple machine. He was no artist, but the simple lines and things so far were within his capability. "So say... You needed to get a log up a stack. Are you going to just lift it up and put it on top with your bare hands?" Crylon shook his head, seeing how she wanted him to actually use the information she had given him. “Is could... Make ramp, start out small. Roll log up. Roll onto top pile. Then when get higher, next row, move back ramp to go hgher. Or... too high, make new ramp, longer, so not so steep?” Sona nodded, smiling at his use of the concept. "Not bad. Now, similar to that but a bit different is the wedge. Its a triangle, kind of like a tiny ramp but used differently. Like say... If you want to hold something in place, a wheel on a wagon, so it does not roll off. You could use a wedge. Try this here. Now draw this.... Right, so a wheel is like this. With a gap here. A wedge fits in, like such, and could stop it from rolling. Right. Another example, which I bet you know, is an axe. In that case rather than holding the object, its being used to separate two things. Namely one bit of wood from another, which ends up cutting the material." Crylon nodded, copying down the image, pointing in the direction of the smithy. “Also use with metal. Want cut when forge, is... Over triangle, wedge, and pressure down. And upward side, cuts. Metal go, either side. Make cut that way.” Nodding Sona pointed at another drawing next to the others. "Right, that is another way. To hold in place. To cut or separate. And to lift. Basically you apply force one way, towards it, and it applies force upward. Like with an axe, or a wedge, or a saw! Like here. The saws cut, using other machines to apply force, but the saw cuts by using a series of wedges applying pressure. And it reduces the force needed compared to just breaking the wood by hand, if that was even possible. Which sometimes it is not." Crylon nodded, copying down the image, understanding what she meant regarding the saws and how they were wedges used for cutting. “Chisel! Chisel also wedge!” WC: 614

[Crylon Stonecraft]

Nodding at Crylon Sona pointed at the drawings so far. "Right so three so far. A lever. A wedge. And an inclined plane, or ramp. Those are the simplest, since at their basic nature they do not have any or many moving parts. Now things get more complicated." Continuing her drawings Sona drew a wheel with a stick coming out of it. "Next is a wheel and axle. Its used in a lot of things. Like say the wagon we talked about earlier. Its got a wheel at either end, when the axle connecting it. And the bed of the wagon rests on top." Drawing out a simplistic copy of the wagon she was detailing, Sona handed off the quill as she continued talking. Crylon drew out a copy as best he could, though was a bit worse drawing the wagon compared to the other simpler things. "Now in the case of the wagon it is rolling on the wheels, holding something on the axle which remains in the same spot, and using outside force to push or in this case pull forward. But there are other uses. Say... A well. You could wrap rope around the middle, with a bucket at the end. And then the wheel would be a lever or handle you turn. Then by turning the lever you turn the wheel and axle and raise or lower the bucket. That's also how something is used, a gear. With those they can lock or connect or interlock in new ways, changing the direction of the force. You could have a bunch of smaller gears or wheels connecting and controlling another thing, say a bigger wheel, which would let you connect to the final thing easier. Which could lessen the force needed." At this Crylon became confused, not quite understanding the gears she spoke of. “Ah... Understand before, but... Gear?” With a smile Sona walked across the mill and pointed at the ceiling. Above the moving parts were large and small gears, connecting and disconnecting and moving about. "Gears. One big input turns all of the smaller wheels, and by turning these levers on or off it connects or disconnects. Basically it multiplies force by the wheels, as you can apply a smaller force to a bigger wheel or something, and then output that across a smaller wheel. The axle. Which then applies all that force across the smaller area. Which would mean lifting or doing more force on that small scale. And when dealing with gears, it gets more complex but allows much more finesse in the transmission. Or speed. So steady force to a big wheel or gear, could turn a smaller gear much quicker. Make sense? And then it can get more complex from there." Still rather confused Crylon did his best to draw out the examples when they returned to the desk, but he did not feel like he was fully grasping it. “Ah, think still not... Get all way. Maybe example?” Sona nodded, pointing up at one of the gears overhead. "Sure, I need to replace one of the gears, its worn out from time. You can help me later. And I could show you how to make a simple gear, albeit a wooden one. Metal tends to work better, but I just order those. It takes more training and forges for such things to make full sized metal gears." WC: 567

[Crylon Stonecraft]

Done with another of the machines, Sona turned to the next in the list. "After that, we have a pulley. A few variations on that. Some with embedded wheels, or ropes, or the like. At the simplest form, its a rope or a similar thing over something, an axle or a shaft. Unlike the other which involved rods or length of material through a wheel, this is a rope or something over one." Drawing a diagram Sona showed a simple pulley, with a rope over a central wheel with a rock tied to one end and a hand on the other. "Alternatively for listing heavy things, you can use a pulley. Some are simple. Some have a groove in the surface for the rope to go through, a block and tackle. Some involve wheels, or gears. Or it could be used in conjunction with a wheel and axle to transmit the force along one to the other. Or more than one pulley, through which the rope is looped. Kind of like the wheel and axle it allows you to apply less force to one area, possibly a larger area but more spread out, and to output a greater force over a smaller area. That's because the pulley rope... Well it distributes the weight and force over more spots, rather than the one spot of the thing you are lifting." Quite confused by this point, grasping only a few points here and there, Crylon finally took the chance to explain his confusion. “Uh... What?” Smiling yet again Sona went to the paper, looking at the drawings Crylon had copied. "So, simple... Right, simple. Say you need to lift something, and its under a tree. Too heavy to just walk up and pick it up. You could fasten a rope to one end. Throw the rope over a thick branch that can hold the weight. And then pull on the other end. That would lift the weight. Simple, right? Now say you still can't lift it. Then maybe you loop it over another heavy branch, and down to you. Now its easier to pull, if you can move it, as its distributed the weight, the transmission, across both branches. That's like adding more blocks and tackles, or more pulleys to the system. Each making a small turn, with you adding a greater force at the end, turning into a bigger force at the other end. Does that make more sense?" Drawing out the example Sona gave, Crylon felt he understood the principle a bit better. The branches were just lines, with the rope a curving line looped around it, with a square at one end and a five fingered hand at the other made of more lines. But seeing it in action, the example, seemed to help him understand it better. “Bit better... So maybe.... Could loop over two branches. Then... Around base of next over tree... And then pull there. Big tree, force on it, and small move make... Smaller loop move more... Then move weight more. So, maybe that?” Nodding Sona smiled, indicating Crylon had gotten it right, or close enough. "Of course, with a crude method like that, friction, grinding, things, that becomes more of an issue. But with proper pulleys, blocks and tackles with grooves for the rope to move through, that's less of a problem. Like... Pushing a box, versus pushing a box with wheels. One grinds, the other slides. That grinding, the reason its slower, is because of friction. Take away friction, and you'll do better." WC: 590

[Reed]

Grades Awarded!

Don't forget to edit/delete your grade request!

Crylon Stonecraft

Skills

• Drawing: 2
• Gadgeteering: 5
• Rhetoric: 1
• Socialization: 5

Lores

• Lore - Identifying Gadgeteering
• Gadgeteering: Lever
• Gadgeteering: Fulcrum
• Gadgeteering: Inclined Plane
• Gadgeteering: Wedge
• Gadgeteering: Wheel and Axel
• Gadgeteering: Gear
• Gadgeteering: Pulley

Awards & Retribution


Notes

This was an interesting read. I look forward to seeing the continuation of this series.