An Article in GEAR TECHNOLOGY That Explains what PCS Does...
The following is an article that appeared in the July/August issue of GEAR TECHNOLOGY! It's not everybody who can say they have been interviewed about gears!
Momma, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Gear Engineers
How do you teach gear ratios to a four-year-old? Let him play with his LEGOs(r). Believe it or not, LEGO makes worm
gears, racks, spur gears, crown gears, bevel gears and 2 kinds of differential housings.
The spur gears come in easy-to-work-with configurations of 8, 16, 24 and 40 teeth. And
very important to junior transmission designers, LEGO parts are manufactured to a
tolerance of +/- .005 mm.
Addendum discovered LEGO gears through Richard Wright, an instructor at the PCS
Centers for Enriched Learning in Boise, Idaho. PCS emphasizes hands-on discovery and
real-world application of knowledge for the 450 students aged 4-18 enrolled in its four
schools in Idaho, Washington and California.
LEGOs are one of the fundamental teaching tools
(building blocks, if you will) used at PCS. "The reason
we use LEGOs is that they're very intuitive, and they're
very non-threatening," Wright says. "I can literally take
a four-year-old and have him build a gear train."
Wright has an internet site devoted exclusively to LEGO
gears (Editor's Note: Richard Wright's web address
has changed since the printed version of Gear
Technology came out. His new address is
www.weirdrichard.com. Thanks to Richard for
permission to use his images). The site has
descriptions of gear types, pictures of LEGO gears, and even a gear ratio quiz.
Go Back to Weird Richard
Copyright© 1996 by Richard Wright for PCS Education Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved