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The Helical Spring Toy: A Spring Too Soft to Hurry
Spartan

Creato da

Spartan

27. settembre 2026NO
18
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The Helical Spring Toy: A Spring Too Soft to Hurry

A helical spring that walks down stairs by itself, flowing its turns from one end to the other, looks like magic. It is careful proportion: flat wire, turns that just touch without pressing on each other, and a stiffness so low for its weight that every motion is slow enough to see. Richard T. James of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, assignor to James Industries, filed US 2,415,012, *Toy and Process of Use*, on 21 August 1946; it was granted 28 January 1947. The patent sets out the proportions: a flat cross-section about four times as wide as it is thick, a coil diameter about thirty times that width, no compression between turns at rest, and a natural frequency between 10 and 100 cycles a minute. This rung works out why that combination walks, and measures a spring toy's stiffness and waves.
Principiante
About 2 hours

Istruzioni

1

Natural frequency and slow waves

Caricamento del notebook Jupyter…
2

Stiffness first

The toy's whole behaviour follows from its stiffness. The embedded blueprint measures a spring's stiffness by Hooke's law.
3

Measure it and make it walk

Weigh the spring. Hang it from one end and measure how far it stretches under its own weight, then add a 50 g mass and measure again: the extra stretch gives its stiffness. Bounce it gently and time twenty oscillations: compare with the notebook's formula. Stretch it along a smooth floor with a partner holding the far end, flick one end sideways and time the pulse across; stretch it further and time again. Finally, set it on the top step of a flight of stairs with even treads, pull the top turns over to the next step, and let go. Try steps of different heights: too low and it stalls, too high and it tumbles.

Strumenti necessari:

Bilancia digitale da cucinaBilancia digitale da cucina
Metro a nastroMetro a nastro
CronometroCronometro
PesoPeso
Molla Slinky (metallo)Molla Slinky (metallo)
4

A spring toy that will not walk

Why a spring toy stalls on the stairs.

Flow

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5

History and honest limits

**Richard T. James**, a naval engineer, filed **US 2,415,012** on 21 August 1946, assigned to James Industries of Philadelphia; it was granted 28 January 1947. The toy was sold as the Slinky. **Honest limits.** The oscillation and wave formulas treat the spring as uniform and ignore the turns' contact at rest; the real toy's collapsed turns make its behaviour richer than the model. The mass in the notebook is illustrative — weigh yours.

Strumenti richiesti

5

CC0 Pubblico dominio

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