I Overengineered a Spinning Top

(youtube.com)

55 points | by bane 6 days ago ago

16 comments

  • barbegal 2 hours ago

    For a real spinning top over engineered https://youtu.be/QLTsxXNekVE?si=S31kpZQHiYlUSedx

    • observationist an hour ago

      It's fascinating that you can get to the level of atomic material properties as a spinning top hacker. Diamond seems like it'd be the obvious winner, if you could somehow get a perfectly polished and smooth surface.

      I'd love to see a small Prince Rupert's drop for a tip and a ruby/sapphire spinning surface - you'd need to make a ton of drops, probably, but having a round, nearly spherical contact geometry and super smooth surface seems like a winning combo.

    • chankstein38 2 hours ago

      Thank you! This is what I really wanted!

  • isaacn 33 minutes ago

    Reminds me of this little top, which actually works quite well: https://limbo.top/

  • mariocesar an hour ago

    There is a Japanese show that made a Scientist vs Engineers version to build the best Spinning Top: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q-hcidtjiM

    Awesome!

    • a2dam 27 minutes ago

      This rules

  • jcims an hour ago

    Saw this last week, really enjoyed the tenacity in problem-solving!!

    Did make me wonder if you could build a solid state one using well-timed pulses through an electromagnet that provide torque through the field interaction with the earth's magnetic field.

    Not much torque available there obviously, but on a per-revolution basis you don't need much.

  • Espressosaurus 27 minutes ago

    Entertaining, but holy cow that music distracts from the content.

  • gigaflop 2 hours ago

    My mind immediately went towards Battlebots when I saw electronics getting involved. I wonder what else would need to be done to make this steerable over RC? There may be a lower weight class where some nicely CNC'ed 'Phantasm Orbs' can score reasonable points.

    • everyday7732 an hour ago

      This already exists- there's a class of robot called "meltybrains" which spin the whole robot using one or more wheel, detect the speed of spinning with a gyro and modulate the speed of the wheels at different points in its' rotation in order to create translational movement. Since they effectively put all the weight allowance into the "weapon" they can be very effective. The additional complexity means that they are hard to get working reliably in chaotic combat conditions. A team called "Project liftoff" had some serious success though.

      • gigaflop 40 minutes ago

        I saw Project Liftoff in person, that little death-frisbee? Looked like they have two points of contact with the floor, which is probably just better design.

        And now that I think a bit further, I might just be imagining a more complicated version of one of those crabwalk spinny metal ones..

  • chankstein38 2 hours ago

    I saw this and, while interesting and impressive, this isn't really a spinning top. It's a gyroscope. I was hoping for a real like "I cast metal into the perfect shape that I physically derived somehow to last as long as possible" or something similar not just "I put a motor in a case and it spins"

  • tartoran 6 days ago

    This is fun, well done. Quite a performance to reach 2 hours on that little battery. Perhaps Euler disks are next?

  • 1shooner an hour ago

    These would make great pomodoro timers.