NEWS Gears

NEWS Gears was a design challenge by Pantazis Houlis, after seeing my Traffic Light Gears: "... maybe use a slightly more complex version to show the wind direction? I.e. instead of colors to have N,W,E,S". This is the result. When the blue arrow is turned, the black circle moves North-East-South-West. The rotation speed of the black gear is three times the turning speed of the blue arrow. The black circle moves along a cycloid path, briefly pausing at each of the four wind directions. Based on the motion of the black gear, the red and green gears at the front were "rolled off". Next, the gears at the back were designed to match the required rotation accelerations and decellerations of those red and green front gears. As before, this gear system is the solution to a design puzzle, and it has no known application otherwise.

Watch the YouTube video.
Read at the Shapeways Forum.
Read more at the Non-Twisty Puzzles Forum.

Please order a 3D-printed do-it-yourself puzzle kit from Shapeways at this page (check with Oskar about screws and stickers), or contact Oskar directly if you are interested in obtaining a fully colored, stickered and assembled sample of this puzzle.