OT: Secret Life of Components

[gregebert]

Tim Hunkin posted a new episode last night on sensors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNnP84tTSFY

He also has earlier episodes posted as well. For those who are unfamiliar with Tim Hunkin, he did a UK series back in the late 1980's called 'The Secret Life of Machines' , which goes into the inner workings of household items, their history, etc in an educational and humorous way.

While most of us already know this material, the way Tim goes thru it is very entertaining and I am certain no matter how much you think you already know, you will still learn something. Enjoy.

[Adrian Godwin]

Hunkin is a delight. The man's like Heath-Robinson or Rube Goldberg.

I've been a fan since his cartoon series in The Observer magazine, 'The rudiments of wisdom'. He also has an arcade on a pier in Southwold, Suffolk, and another in Holborn, London starring some of his amazing and amusing machines.  See timhunkin.com

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[Ian Vine]

I love his work. 

On 1 Apr 2022, at 17:48, gregebert <greg...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Tim Hunkin posted a new episode last night on sensors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNnP84tTSFY

He also has earlier episodes posted as well. For those who are unfamiliar with Tim Hunkin, he did a UK series back in the late 1980's called 'The Secret Life of Machines' , which goes into the inner workings of household items, their history, etc in an educational and humorous way.

While most of us already know this material, the way Tim goes thru it is very entertaining and I am certain no matter how much you think you already know, you will still learn something. Enjoy.

[Nick]

I met Tim a few times years ago - In another life I used to make solid-state Tesla coils and electromagnetic can crushers/disk platter launchers using massive low-ESR capacitor banks - the UK TC group had (and still have) an annual bash up at the Cambridge Museum of Technology .

A long time ago, probably 15 years ago or more, Tim used to come to watch us blow stuff up and throw some really good bolts of lightning. Sometimes it was our own kit that exploded, other times we used a lot of thermite (allegedly) . Sometimes it got very very scary - in 2008 we had a rather unexpected uncontrolled rapid disassembly - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYMckRUXgEs (filmed by my youngest son who was also interviewed by the BBC!).

Nick 

[Ian Vine]

Hilarious (could have been not so). 

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[Nick]

Another video of the same event. You can hear someone saying "Run away"! Astonishingly, you can see that none of the supporting bricks are left - we found a couple of bricks, on fire, in the carpark of a supermarket about 70mtrs away. No-one was injured though some had holes in their clothes from the molten iron that showered around the place. In my son's video, right at the end on the right you can see a brick fly past him. 

What we had was a large pumpkin filled with ice under a stack of bricks that was supporting two large earthenware flower pots (with holes in the bottom so the molten iron could pour down) - there was about 2kg of thermite involved and it was lit with a sparkler (firework).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aapZzpYYBaY

[Nicholas Stock]

Mess with Thermite at your peril.....

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