It’s Lucia here, one of the new animateurs here at échofab! One of the problems with having so many tools available is you start to have grand ideas even as a beginner!
With the help of everyone here, I just finished a small project to learn about simple mechanics and gears– a good first step before I try building something too elaborate! After learning some basic theories about where power comes from and how to capture this power and transform it into the motions you want, I set about to create a small engine for my new ride– the toy pickup!
While picking my perfect small motor, and gears, and gear belt, Mark-Olivier and I walked around and peeked into all the electronics surrounding us and it’s incredible to find out all of it runs on basically the exact same principle as my toy car. The world made simple!
When my car finally moved on its own, I had one more surprising thing to discover! Changing the positive and negative polarity by flipping the battery around actually changes the direction of the motor, which means the wheels can move in two different directions.
It’s wonderful how endless the possibilities are once the world of mechanics is open.