Gear Workings

1. My toy is a merry-go-round that is made from wood
and the gears are made from round pieces of
wood with nails hammered into them
to act as teeth on each. It has
small toys hanging from a bowl-like top
that turns.

2. The two gears make the merry-go-round
turn, the horizontally placed gear is connected
to the centre pole on which is the roof &
toys and that gear interlocks with a
vertically placed gear that is turned by
a rotatable handle

3. To make it better I could have
spaced the nail teeth more accurately
because sometimes when the handle is
turned one nail tries to skip over two
others on the other cog.

Laura's description of how her gears work

My Gear Toy

I used two gears on my toy. One gear
(the smaller one) was connected to a handle
that you turn and that smaller gears
teeth connect with the larger gears
teeth. and Every time you make the
merry-go-round turn once you have to
turn the handle twice because each
tooth connects with a tooth on the
large gear and there are twice as
many teeth on the large gears so to
make it turn once each tooth on the
large gear has to connect with one
on the smaller gear therefore each
tooth on the small gear pushes one
on the large gear twice.

Laura's description of her toy