South Pointing Chariot

Back in the 20^th Century, Susan and I visited an exhibition of ancient Chinese engineering at a museum in Birmingham, England. One of the exhibits was a reproduction of the South Pointing Chariot. The chariot was a sort of mechanical compass, i.e. as the chariot moved along the ground, no matter which way it turned, the indicator on top always pointed south.

Some people believe that this device dates from BCE. There are no surviving examples of the machine from ancient times, but it is described in Chinese literature dating from the second century CE. Modern engineers have come up with different theories as to how it worked. A popular one is that it operated by means of differential gears and various examples (including the on display in Birmingham) have been made. This Blender model is based on plans published on the web site: http://www.odts.de/southptr/, which in turn were derived from the work of Mr. George H. Lanchester around 1932

#Chinese #South_pointing_Chariot #differential #gears #Blender #Cycles