Gear cube and Brain gear

Exploring some mechanisms based on bevel gears, with Sabetta Matsumoto. These are our interpretations of some reasonably well known designs.

Our versions are available to print yourself and assemble with bolts here:

[diegodoesstuff]

Explanation for how the three years work together:
Each of the "gears" on the brain cube is actually two beveled gears glued together. And so although they both move in the same spatial direction, one gear in the pair moves clockwise while the other moves counterclockwise. So at the corner with "3" gears, there are really six gears.
It really comes down to the gears not being in one plane of rotation, but in three separate planes of rotation all turning towards the center of the face.

[furyxan]

The earliest gear cubes were designed by Oskar van Deventer. He has a great channel here I recommend.

[TheInvisibleCactusYT]

You are literally the only person in the world who can get me excited to learn about maths

[SquirtleSquad]

I remember discovering the wonders of gears as a little kid in the science museum. You would put magnetic pegs and gears on a metal table to make little gear rigs and I probably spent at least an hour just at this table making circles of gears. I discovered how 3 gears can’t meet at the same time, then how an odd number of gears can’t make a loop that turns. I learned about pulleys and how small and big gears make fast movements turn slow and vice versa.

[rismosch]

Oskar van Deventer's "Gear Shift" comes to mind.

[IsaacMyers]

A three set of gears only doesn’t work if they rotate either clockwise or counterclockwise due to alternation. On the brain gear, however, they rotate either in towards the center or out from it. This means they all turn the same way, therefore no alternation is required.

[persinitrix]

LOL. The entire video i was wondering as to the purpose of the brain gear having that middle seem where the 2 sides of the gear were offset from each other and then Sabetta asked how the triangular gear fit was able to revolve. I assume the brain gear would be locked if that offset didnt exist, as there would be too much symmetry or something

[TheEpicPwnSauce]

those are some seriously impressive natural claws

[ravensnflies]

came for the nerd stuff, stayed cause i fell in love with sabetta's claw hands.

[ToadJimmy]

mmm. very, very nice shapes.
I love the relation between cubes, octahedrons, and cuboctahedrons so these have a very fun and juicy feeling in my mind.

[tuxat_]

asmr + geometry = this video, like seriously, ya'lls voices make me wana sleep

[Jko]

The gear cube reminds me of Oskar van Deventer's Gear Shift puzzle. I bet the brain gear could be turned into one using a similar mechanism. Coloring the puzzle seems tricky, maybe each gear is multicolored and the solved state is when the colors are aligned from gear to gear.

[jenbanim]

I really enjoy seeing all these shapes and gear mechanisms that seem like they shouldn't exist. It's like 3D printed cursed geometry

[tommyhopkins]

this is one of the best youtube channels by far

[Confuseddave]

I was exploring this a few years ago when I was playing around with bevel gears, and found that you can get more options for "cube gear" style gear systems by relaxing the requirement that all the gears be the same size. For example, I designed one based on a truncated icosahedron/dodecahedron, using twenty 12-toothed gears and twelve 20-toothed gears (no like gears ever mesh). I have to pay for 3D printing, though, and never got around to making a physical model.

[insanitycubed]

I think the reason why 3 double bevel gears work together is because putting 2 bevel gears back to back changes how it works in some way. Looking straight at the axis from one side has the whole thing rotating the opposite way as from looking at the other, so it works like having 6 gears together instead of 3.

When I was thinking about this I thought up a way to show how double bevel gears and flat gears are fundamentally different. You bend 3 flat gears so they go together, side by side x3. They won't turn, but flip them all 180 and they would turn fine if they were meshing. You could bend the prongs 90 degrees so the gears mesh, and it I'm pretty sure it would work fine, like double bevels. I don't see how this lines up with the 6 gears thing I was talking about earlier though so I almost feel like that explanation is missing something. Idk, I'm sure this is already written down somewhere, but really interesting to think about.

Great video as usual, and cool guest

[Veptis]

Coloring the gear cube is a neat idea.

[tirlas]

A very Oskar van Deventer presentation.

[TheRealStructurer]

Very nice gears 👍On the things to improve for the channel, audio. Thanks for sharing 👍🏼

[atlasxatlas]

Me rewatching the same 10 seconds because my brain auto focuses on the nails