Exercise your brain

[kngtek]

Picking up from Merv Klotz's 'brain stretcher' post, here is an old 'off-the-beaten track' brain teaser for all you machine-builders; read to my 10th grade English class by the teacher many decades ago. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.'s poem 'The Wonderful One-Hoss-Shay' describes what, ostensibly, is an example of the PERFECT mechanical design of a one horse shay (two-wheeled cart). I will leave it to you machine builders to decide if you agree.

The following link (Eldritch Press) shows the poem. Explanatory remarks listed there suggest that many years later Henry Ford purportedly sent his engineers to scrap yards searching for junked Fords so as to identity those parts which hadn't failed so that Ford (the company) could re-engineer the non-failed parts to make them weaker - thereby reducing the cost - perhaps the first example of planned obsolescence?

Back to the poem - In my view the shay wasn't perfect, but as OWH says, it was perfectly logical - clearly a satirical view of planned non-obsolescence (from the pov of a machine builder).

Enjoy,

Gary (kngtek)
Calgary, AB Canada