It's Perfectly Acceptable to Bring Work Home with You for Maker Faire

Lego Technics actually just turned 40 last year. Technic kits have always differentiated themselves from their blocky contemporaries with a focus on additional parts such as gears, motors and axles to facilitate motion, and while the window dressing has changed over the years from the bulldozers and helicopters of yesteryear to the newest, coolest sports cars today, that core premise hasn't.

When discussing the thinning of this country's potential manufacturing workforce, it is often maintained that technical training opportunities should be made available to grade school-age children who express interest. Get their attention while they're young and impressionable, the thinking goes — and hope their parents don't talk them out of it.

The definition is pretty straightforward: An association is an organization of persons having a common interest. Basically, it's a group that shares a purpose or mission that exists for the mutual advancement of its members.

Faithful readers of this space know we sometimes like to use Addendum to give relatively unknown 19th Century mechanical engineers/inventors their well-deserved props. Like, for example, William Brunton (1777-1851), who is credited - but generally unknown - with inventing the Steam Horse, also known as the Mechanical Traveler.

For over 50 years, the Do Nothing Machine has entertained the public eye with its complex machinery, a mountain of over 700 gears put together for the express purpose of doing nothing.

Though we think of the computer as a distinctly 20th Century invention, Charles Babbage designed several precursors way back in the early 1800s.

As the Indianapolis 500 begins its second hundred years, it is a good opportunity to recall the guy who put the gearbox "up front."

Your automobile's differential is easily one of its most important components. This becomes crystal clear to anyone that has ever had to pony up to replace one. The differential, that mathy-driven, mechanically complex system that keeps axles and pinions running smoothly was invented by a watchmaker - for a watch.

For centuries, Switzerland has been considered home to the greatest watchmakers in the world. Works of fine beauty and optimal precision have been the norm there seemingly forever.