Engineering Goodness
 

It seems a lot of things these days are designed to barely do what they are supposed to do. But once in a while you stumble across some ingeniously designed item that goes beyond your expectations.

I picked up a cheap replacement shower head at home depot. It said 'MADE IN USA' on the package, which I thought was odd enough, and it intrigued me to buy it. No sooner did I unpack it, the rotating 'face' came off in my hand. Oh the shame and humiliation of another bad American product! But I stuck it back together and installed it anyway, and I was amazed that water pressure actually holds the thing together. When the water is turned off, you can pull the face piece off the unit for easy cleaning.

Whats yours?

I get a lot of those pleasent surprises while working on Mercedes. Its the little things, like sometimes I noticed they moved a part so you can get a wrench on a bolt and swing it, little things like that. Very often when I am taking something apart I find myself thinking that whoever designed this thought about the guy who was going to have to fix it.

exactly.

especially the 123 body cars.

tom w

Here's an elegant thing:
 

An igloo. Ever build an igloo? The structure has to fall in on itself in order to stay up. It's the same principle as the arch bridge.

Just don't remove the keystone!

In some old planes, like the DC2, the landing gear is retracted up and forward into the nascelle (the landing gear goes up and forward, not up and backwards).

This is a design feature. If you ever lose landing gear controls, you can drop the landing gear and the air pressure (as the plane moves forward) locks the gear into place preventing it form collpasing upon landing.

A nifty little design feature!

Just got some zip ties from Harbor Freight made out of stainless steel instead of plastic. Great idea. Thanks to whoever it was who mentioned their existence on this board.

it is true an arch will collapse if the keystone is removed. but not a dome.

the top ring of the dome acts as a compression ring and it can be built up without formwork. indeed the top can be left open forever.

like the pantheon in rome. a huge masonry dome with an occulus (i am not sure i spelled it correctly) but it is an opening that acts as an open air skylight.

as a bonus the 142.5' (i just checked wikipedia) diameter dome of the pantheon allows one to sit there and watch the movement of the sun. the distances are great enough you can quite easily watch the movement of the circle of light across the floor and up the wall.

one of my all time favorite buildings.

and as a kid i used to build igloos. out of snow, not ice blocks like the innuit.

tom w

Engineering Skill
 

It takes special skills to be an engineer...


http://www.devilducky.com/media/57158/

The water and sewer systems of any old. large metropolitan city. By golly, those old engineers knew how to build for the future!

Reminded about this from Kerry's other thread....

Tradiditonal skin-on-frame kayaks. Amazing.

R. Leo, looking at your avatar I am reminded that it was Howard Huges who invented the cross-my-heart brassiere.

In 1943 Howard Hughes, famous billionaire and genuine lover of cleavage designed a cantilevered bra to better show off Jane Russell's cleavage in the movie 'The Outlaw'.

Bra History

A moment of silence for HH...
He came up with a lot of ideas, especially for aviation. Retractable landing gear, flush-mount rivets and counter-rotating props come to mind.

Thomas Jefferson shared your fondness for the Pantheon. It inspired his design of another great building, the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, the prettiest college or university you will ever see. http://www.virginia.edu/uvatours/rotunda/

Pound for pound, one of the strongest building materials ever is provided by nature.

Bamboo - the ability to flex without breaking is amazing. An engineering marvel!