The Curious World of Springs | Szydlo's At Home Science
This week, Andrew takes us on a journey exploring a seemingly simple object - the spring.
From pocket-watches, to the suspension of a vintage car, these simple mechanical objects have a huge number of uses still in our modern world, from storing energy to giving you a smooth drive. There is of course a little bit of action from the blow torch (it wouldn't be a video from Andrew Szydlo without some fire) and lots of interesting mechanical explorations along the way too.
Chapters:
00:00 - A spring driven pocketwatch
04:04 - John Harrison and the first chronometer
06:00 - Mainsprings and hairsprings
09:20 - Spring driven toys
15:43 - Investigating a broken mainspring
19:22 - An introduction to metallurgy
23:10 - Experiments with spring steel
30:05 - Leaf spring suspension
34:00 - Helical suspension springs
Andrew Szydlo is a chemist and secondary school teacher at Highgate School, well-loved by pupils and Ri attendees alike. He has given public lectures around the country, been featured on TV shows and has become a popular regular face on our channel.
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Andrew Szydlo deserves a channel of his own!
Truly!
Yes, he does!
He has one, but uploads infrequently!
Here is a Man that not only knows what he's talking about, is enthusiastic about it. You know when someone loves what he's talking about! Cheers from Portugal!
You should see Cliff Stoll
@@LeoStaley Klein bottle guy!
I love learning from someone who is this enthusiastic
I'm not a native English speaker, even though I learned so much with this lesson! Your passion is something that every single person who watched this video may feel! It's amazing and extremely beautiful how much love you've put on it! Thanks Andrew!
There is one hugely appealing characteristic that Andrew Szydlo shares with other great science communicators like Professor Sir Martyn Poliakoff and David Attenborough (to name two of my favourites but there are plenty of others) and that is enthusiasm. None of them is a young man but they have never lost their love of knowledge and learning and that shines through whenever they talk about something they are interested in. I love it.
I'm 47yo and still feel like a kid in a class when watching Prof Szydlo's RI lectures.. and I love it!!!!
27:45 - Never do that without safety goggles, a small slice nearly always flies off at supersonic speed (you can hear it hitting something behind the camera), same as when you break spaghetti.
Time to make sure to implement an evil bit for springs, so that people know it can be harmful when disassembled.
honestly even the "rapid spring disassembly" was dangerous
Really spaghetti?
@@djcheph yes. when breking it pass the speed of sound check SmarterEveryDay video number 127
Right, I've been saying this for years! Always wear safety glasses when breaking spaghetti, you can't trust that stuff!
Ah.. video from the Covid 19 days. I saw this one a couple of years ago. I just had to watch it again. I just like the way Andrew Szydyo talks and demonstrates things. Thank you. From Virginia, United States.😀
He has certainly persuaded me to spring into action and not be so wound up about everything.
Also be careful not to lose your temper
Well I was certainly depressed to hear of his expansive knowledge on the subject but I'll rebound I'm sure.
That’s how u bounce back good on you
Guys, you are really overstretching it.
@@Krmpfpks Who took the spring out of your step?
Dr. Szydlo, you are a most amazing man for the way you make science so alive and exciting.
Thank you so much! I teach my children physics and just last week I bought my 9th grade son a mechanical pocket watch (he asked for it). I want him to understand how it works.
Syzdlo been holding it down for the RI, the man
I trod upon my watch by mistake; now I have a spring in my step.
Sounds very painful. 😲
Don't forget to wind it
The world would be a much different place if all education was delivered with such knowledgeable enthusiasm! I love this guy!
My favourite part of this lecture ( 35:21 - 35:24) I❤️it, thank you .
I love how passionate and excited senior British teachers teach. I can watch them all day with a smile on my face.
This guy is a real educator and a great one. If only he was in every school we would have new innovator's abound
Lovely old watches. A pleasure to see them and a pleasure to watch this presentation.
lovely Szydlos back, great Andrew and Oscar,....as always...thankyou to you both...keep safe and best regards
So much energy and a man invested with his whole heart. I really learned a lot from you. Thank you and best wishes from Germany.
EVERYTHING is a spring! Instead of springs and geared drivetrains, the kids now can use a LiPo, ESC, transmitter, and receiver and can accomplish what is effective the same thing. Kids of today are no less smart for not having the same toys as the kids of yesterday; it's simply a different skillset. What a wonderful video by Andrew, thank you!
Please continue to make these videos, Prof. Szydlo!
Great video. Thank you for the time putting it together
Thanks for sharing! I really enjoyed his Christmas Lectures too.
its so amazing that those little mechanics are constantly going inside the watch like that.
We need more of this man!
I sure do enjoy learning about things, from this man. Thanks for this series.
Beautifully presented
One of my Fave R.I. vids other than the Christmas Lectures!
All your video's are amazing . thank you so much for your clear explanations .
Thanks! This was engaging and informative.
fantastic video! thanks for sharing
Alexander, Metals in the service of man. A great introduction to the world of metallurgy. Think it was a war time accelerated education for a workforce heading into armaments, airplane and ship building.
Love your enthusiasm
Those old spring engine cars are awesome! I can imagine tuning/modifying one and racing it against a friends.
I was in the US Marine Corps from 1975 to 1995. I began may career as a teletype and crypto technician. I throughly enjoyed this presentation. The teletype uses a vast number of springs to accomplish it’s task. While a motor is present, it mostly loads the springs which do the work. Also, teletypes are great examples of receiving a serial electrical signal and converting it to a parallel mechanical action, and the reverse in transmit. Great program!
Thanks for the great video. I really love hearing about engineering books, a collection of those mean the world to me. :)
Your enthusiasm around 14:00 reminds me of the TV series by Professor Julius Sumner Miller. But those spring motors were actually new then.
Right? They do seem to be of kindred spirit.
this was delightful
I always like Szydlo´s videos.
You spoil us dear sir!! Thank you
Hearing this man talk brings joy
You are a lover of art, sir. Art is in its basis skill that exceeds the mundane, done with emotion that is communicated from soul to soul through the work. His passion for science and teaching is certainly like a powerful wave crashing on you.
One industry I am glad I wss in for 30 years. I am a prototype spring maker. It was an awesome career
15:43 - wow, that spring goes a looonnnnnggg time! I had some spring toys as a kid, but never like that. Very cool!
Wait, and what stopped it? It stopped for a while (around 16:32), but then at 25:13, when moved, it continues!!! Wow!
I have totally no interest in springs, but this man has such esteem and vigor(well these words came to my mind because of his oldschool style obviously) that I am watching this to the end.
Great educator: these videos can be exhausting; I get out of breath just watching him.
My first introduction to a wound spring, and practically all of clockword for that matter, was removing the wrong screws in a dysfunctional kitchen timer about a month ago. One that was never meant to be maintenanced, I might add. This of course, resulted in every gear being strewn across the room by the mangling of main spring. Only the tuned mass remained in place, being fixed as it was on one end of the 'hairspring'(just learned that word from you). That took quite the concentration and learning session to get back together.
Well done i took a clockwork train apart and never got it back together again, lol
@@williamgoode9114 Thank you! It was probably quite a bit simpler than your clockwork train was.
Even though there was no maths or complex analysis i feel I've learned more about springs from this good man in 37 minutes than i did from all my mechanics and design lecturers in my years at university, no shade at the staff of my university's mechanical engineering department intended, just stating facts 💯💯💯💯💯
@Kevin Original I'd actually say chime on cause you're preaching right now. I agree that degrees are being debased. As for these 'authors'... I can tell you in my years at university there was only 3, and only 3, prescribed books that I could deem worth its price. I had a Russian Prof for my final year lecturing me, hella smart guy, does AI stuff when he's not lecturing, he told us "use textbook for examples only" and followed with "for the course follow me and my notes, ignore textbook. Authors just want to show how smart they are, they can write utter nonsense and be published, no care for understanding of information" and he was right, I wasn't great but I indeed passed the course on the first try despite it being the hardest course of the level
FR lockdown has unlocked so many hidden treasures we keep at home. Absolutely fascinating and so many applications in robotics and just energy storage in general.
I got all excited when I found a fusee movement online that was a "JOhn Harrison". Turns out it was a different JH. But still cool as it seems to have been made in Liverpool in the 1840's! Great VideO
Videos from pawpaw Szydlo get me "wound" up.
Very surprising and incomprehensible that Mr Szydlo does not mention Hooke, Hookes law (Ut tensio sic vis) or the fact that he made the first balance spring watches. Experts!
We did all that making chisels in metal work in Watford Grammar School for Bogs, beautiful colours went on later to see tempered colours on Trident Exhaust.
Loved this! I would like to see spring technology in all 3 it's existing functions, and perhaps some pioneering ones, applied to the engineering problem of surviving interplanetary probes on exoplanets which are too hostile environmentally for modern electronics to survive.
The sound quality here is phenomenal. asmr af
Love these videos! Perfect for folks to gain a little understanding and look at the world around them just a little differently every day. RI is one of my better subscriptions.
Awesome education
The talk was interesting, but I was too busy gazing longingly at the Progress Junior 12S pillar drill, and Myford Super 7 lathe in the background. The Myford's a pretty nice piece of kit, But the Progress is a really nicely made and almost infinitely rebuildable tool that (With proper care and maintenance) your grand kids could one day be passing on to THEIR grand kids. In this current "Buy cheap, replace often" culture we live in, the engineer in me still likes to see tools about that were designed to last AT LEAST a lifetime.
Love the enthusiasm this man has !! Wish he was my grandpa 😂
Well... u can adopt him as ur grandpa... :D
super cool
Ever tried putting a pull start spring back ?? Just use zip ties to hold the spring tension , Great video again Andrew !!
Students didn't know that an old watch was energized by a spring? Really? UNBELIEVEABLE, in my opinion.
I am sure that many of my vintage introductions were toys like cars. We soon learned to make them go we have to wind them up. If my memory serves me right, wind up toys came before inertia motors.
@Andrew Did you configure your camera to record from your lapel microphone instead of it's on board mic? I ask because your voice sounds very far away and indistinct, even though you're wearing a lapel mic, and yet when you get close to the camera to show us a gear, your voice gets very clear. That makes me think we're only hearing camera audio, not the lapel.
19:09 that was confusing :). I like these videos very much!
Yes , but if you pause , you can see half a hole .
Who's back! And I'm happy to be among you.
13:37 - This vehicle imba! ;D
Another utility of springs I didn't hear about in the video: with them you can make scales (dynamometers, actually) and know the weight of objects (or the intensity of forces in general). Many years ago I bought two dynamometers, just for the fun of it. One with a capacity of 30 g and divisions of 1 g, and the other with a capacity of 10 g and divisions of 0.2 g. Surprisingly enough, I never used them (or any other contraption) to sell drugs.
Prof Andrew is the Morgan freeman of UK - i dont care what he talks about im interested.
delboy and Rodney had and sold that watch making them miwyunares 😆
Professor Szydlo, IEEE (Interesting, Exceptional, Energetic, Educational). Thank you, Prof. Szydlo, thank you, RI. EDIT: typos.
Reminds me of my older brothers Construction Set.
I have disassembled first alarm clock when I was 5 years old, I think. It gave me the general understanding of how it works. And lots of gears and springs. It is really odd to hear that there are people who do not know what spring is and how it works. I guess I am looking from not very common perspective, of someone who had lots of mechanical toys back in the day and was always curious what's inside. Nowdays the kid would hardly understand how tablet computer works if they break it open.
Yes Andrew. Love the work a secret engineer really. I loved the video even though I repair garrod movers n clocks n anything wind up or weight driven n the 4 dislikes are from non engineer's
After the nuclear war we need Szydlo to use his vast knowledge to rebuild civilization. Protect him at all costs.
He does this is it!
There is an old joke in Germany, at the cost of young people. 2 minors meet to to show each other what they have got for Christmas presents. One of them shows off a latest tech electronic device. The other says ´My grandfather gave me a miraculous wrist watch.´ His friend inspects it and says ´It looks old and used `. The first says ´It is used, but now watch the miracle : All you have to do is to give a few turns to this little cogwheel, and it will run. It will never need a new battery !
Cool man
Indeed!
Just over half an hour of discussion & demonstration of various sorts of springs, & not one mention or Robert Hooke & his eponymous Law? I'm somewhat surprised!
Pawpaw szydlo is a chemist. But you do bring up a fair point.
Actually there are 2 springs operating the time function. He didnt realise there is a hairspring moderating the balance wheel.
So how much energy (in Watt hours so we can compare against our phone batteries) does such a watch spring hold?
Week to months or year depending on the spring
@@dragonslayerornstein387 I wasn't asking how often you have to wind it. A watt hour (Wh) is a unit of energy. Batteries will be labeled in watt hours or amp hours. Knowing how much energy the spring stores, and that it lasts (say) a week, we can then determine the power demand of the pocket watch in milliwatts. It would be interesting to compare that against an electric device.
@@JohnDlugosz A pocket watch needs and stores very little energy. I dont know the numbers, but it could store as much as 2-3 minutes of energy for watching this video. Maybe less... Probably much less. It would be easier to compare to an RC car since I have seen both. A battery operated RC car 30 years ago, using old batteries would run for 10-15 minutes. A spring loaded car would run for 5-10 seconds if it was really good, a normal would run for 3-4 seconds. So a pocket watch working for a week is not about large energy storage, but minimal energy use.
Sorry I can't give a proper answer, but as a starter, if it could store 1 watt hour (3600 joules) it could spin a 100% efficient dynamo to produce 6 volts at 1 amp for one sixth of an hour, ie 10 minutes. I reckon it's about two orders orders of magnitude less. So maybe 10 mW hours or less. The watch mechanism must be in the microwatt region.
In case anyone is wondering about how to do the opposite (i.e., turn a piece of non-springy steel back into a spring), it's a two-step process. First you heat it to a high temperature (around 800ºC), then quench it (making it hard but brittle), then you heat it again, very slowly, to a controlled temperature (typically 293 ºC, where it stops being brittle but doesn't become malleable).
Ah but no mention of bending vs torsion, or less commonly pure tension and compression. Still, not a bad video. A less common spring is found on late 1960s and early 1970s Dodge cars, they use the A-frame design but no coil spring, instead they have long straight bars in torsion. Parallel to the chassis frame, one end connected to the chassis and the other into the A-frame pivot. The connection to the chasis was rotatable (in a garage) to adjust the amount of tension and thus the stance of the car for both driver handling preference and minor changes in weight with the different engine options.
Can we make a high tension spring for a normal sized car that?
The key wouldn't fit in your pocket .
There are 2 Springs in the clockwork motor, not only one. But the other one is easily missed.
Of course there are some pocket watches with a type of pendulum, it winds the mainspring!
I would love to have a teacher to introduce springs on me! Or even a couple of clocks!
alephii yes sadly, today in US schools it’s usually only the students who introduce Glocks to the class. Now I’m just hoping that my joke‘s not going to recoil at me some day!
Still the main mechanism in your corded vacuum cleaner wire rewinder
This was great but may I just correct something? Those are not grub screws. Grub screws don't have a head (they are the same width all the way along) whereas those screws clearly do.
35:20 Toyoyoyoyoy Tottomm Tottomm.. 😄
BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE!
haha the clock on my wall was ticking louder than your watches
Man, i cant believe my generation. *pulls out pocket watch from the 1800's* whats it run off of? "batteries".... "no one had a clue what a spring was" like seriously wtf
I'll be mroe concerned when they forget what summer is.
My generation had mechanical toys and was always curious what's inside. I guess, if modern kid breaks his tablet open, he would hardly get any knowledge out of it. Except that the tablet was expensive and now it is broken.
Am I the only one that can't believe this? I thought nearly everyone above the age of five knew what a spring was. I can't even remember learning what a spring was, and I remember learning about simple machines like levers and wedges as a little kid.
And here I thought the whole spring is tempered and the ends are then heated and slowly cooled to release the temper and make them less elastic.
Stored energy
I had loads of wind up toys. Still have a gramophone.
How can you not know what a spring is in secondary school?
Why did you stop doing the Photography series, prof? Is it because of the pandemic situation keeping you at home?
There's one more in the pipeline! We're releasing it next week
@@TheRoyalInstitution Great!
Guess I will just spring into action then.