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kindly shopkeeper

The falkirk wheel has to be one of the top pieces of irl infrastructure that look like i messed something up in simcity

A canal that extends into empty space, where it suddenly turns into a rotating elevator in order to connect it with another canal dozens of yards below
96 comments
Hot Dog Water

@hannah

Where're Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey?

Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@GGMcBG @hannah Who? When you go through the Falkirk Wheel you're transported to another reality, and I'm pretty sure those people aren't real in this one.

Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag

@hannah
Fallout 76 used this as inspiration for a monorail system in the game. You can run around on the loops.

Auscandoc

@rochelimit @cstross @Sondra @hannah Apparently close. Lego not SIM City (as per the Wikipedia link) “on Wikipedia that initial designs were modeled using the architect’s daughter’s Lego. I think that improves it even more.”

Greg Wellman

@cstross @Sondra @hannah I wonder if that inspired that one scene in Iain Banks' "Look to Windward" with a ship transfer on the orbital's grand canal. Different axis of rotation and less efficient, but more spectacular.

Aaron Kuhn

@hannah when you’ve laid down your grid just perfect in cities skylines and can’t get the highway intersection ramp to connect just right so you say fuck it and leave it

Ravindra Kanodia

@DialupDownload @hannah "Ah crap. Well I could raise the terrain level- wait no, that would disrupt the power station, uh what if I move the transit hub, oh whoops now the entire sewer grid is disconnected from the treatment plant... Oh hell, let's just put a big ferris wheel for the boats lol"

Rora Borealis

@hannah It took me a minute to work it all out. That's a strange design.

Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@rora_borealis @hannah And a brilliant one. Stick two 10 ton narrowboats on either lift, two 0.1 ton kayaks, or 10 tons on one side and 0.1 tons on the others, and it remains balanced (cos displacement)...and still only uses the power consumption of the average toaster.

Rora Borealis

@_thegeoff @hannah The more I read, the more impressed I am with this engineering. Definitely some out-of-the-box thinking!

Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@rora_borealis @hannah Yup! Nothing that revolutionises physics or engineering, but it's definitely a "we've always done it THIS way...can we change that?" moment.

Metnix

@_thegeoff
My physics teacher sense is tingling, there will likely be an exam question based on this in the coming school year.
@rora_borealis @hannah

Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@metnix @rora_borealis @hannah Bonus points: what aerodynamic advantage does the spiky-cam design offer, given how fast it rotates? (A: Basically none, but spin it up real fast.....?!)

Phil Ashby :marmite: 🍵

@_thegeoff @metnix @rora_borealis @hannah (vaguely serious) my understanding from the visitor centre info was that the asymmetric design was to prevent wind eddy's and oscillations destroying the beauty.

Geoff 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@phlash @metnix @rora_borealis @hannah (Appreciation of vaguely serious) Could tie in with prevailing winds and local geography I suppose?

wakame

@hannah
Cool people just go full speed instead of waiting for the elevator to go down.

Charlie Stross

@hannah Now do that for Panamax container ships and aircraft carriers going in and out of Lake Gatun instead of the existing locks …

EaterOfSnacks

@cstross @hannah Back when I did visuals for marine civils firms, a Giant Grabby Crane System (for picking up container and bulk ships and shaking their cargo into big sorting hoppers) may have snuck into a presentation or two. Rejected by short-sighted fools, as were my Floating Irish Sea Train Link and the London Transport Pneumatic Trampoline Network. No wonder the world's in the state that it is.

JDPON3

@hannah yesss ive been obsessed with its design since i first heard about it

Incredible things happening in Scotland

Michal Migurski 🍉

@hannah Or like something out of Fred’s book on NASA space station concepts from the 1970s cup.columbia.edu/book/space-se

Ben Place

@hannah My thought process on seeing that picture:

1. looks like some “Logan's Run”-type thing
2. wait is that water?
3. is that a lock?
4. holy crap! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falkirk_

takin' a break

@hannah sincerely this is the coolest fucking boat thing i've learned about since i learned how a lock and dam works (we have a lot of them where i'm from)

Hunter King

@hannah if somebody posted this without context I'd probably tell them it was AI generated

Danny :verified:

@hunterking @hannah a remarkable piece of architecture / engineering. Looks out of place when you consider locks would normally be used, but this works so well

eclectech

@hannah Hah! I really like the Falkirk Wheel, but you are so right about that.

серафими многоꙮчитїи

@hannah ridiculously low energy usage because it's self-balancing via the Archimedes principle - it's one of my favourite bits in Scotland. Did you go on it?

kindly shopkeeper

@derwinmcgeary unfortunately not, i just rode the glas-ed train through falkirk station and remembered it existed

Mary Alicia Ziff

@hannah
When ingenuity is applied to a problem, art happens.
Beautiful and brilliant.

Mary Alicia Ziff

@hannah
When ingenuity is applied to a problem, art happens.
Beautiful and brilliant.

Chadee the Dream Witch 🌕 🌊

@hannah That has to be one of the weirdest yet coolest pieces of engineering ever.

Oh no, it's SpottyFox

@hannah Just had to look up that this is an actual thing that exists

Monica Rooney

@CStamp @hannah I visited this 20 years ago. It’s impressive.

Colin the Mathmo

@hannah It's fabulous ... so incredibly clever.

Finally got to traverse it last year ... amazing engineering, beautiful conception.

Tony

@hannah I can't remember how close they are to the Falkirk lock now, but don't forget the Kelpies!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kelp

Jon-Pål Sætre

@hannah honestly wild that this is a real thing that exists out there

TheCityDweller :verified_gay:

@hannah I have been there and it is a marvel!

They only need a 3 kW electric motor to run this.

Why?

Because of the Archimedes principle, each boat entering a pod pushes away the same amount of water as the ship weighs - as each pod is always filled with water up to the top - that means the whole setup is ALWAYS balanced - so you only need to overcome the friction of the huge gears of that many tons weighing device!

Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE

@hannah Watched it in operation (in the rain) a couple of weeks ago.

OK, so I get the engineering, it's not all that far beyond what any couple of drunk spanners could have fantasized about on a beer mat, but the really impressive thing was to have got it funded!

Mhanch

@hannah when we were in Scotland I demanded we bit it it and took the whole family. They thought I was nuts but were still impressed.

DELETED

@hannah

All that for a great cup of coffee. Great lengths.

Cheradenine Zakalwe

@hannah@posts.rat.pictures The Falkirk Wheel is AWESOME. Not to mention cool AF. Victorian steampunk meets 21st (well, OK, 20th) century engineering.

DELETED

@hannah Wait... Is that a fancy ferris wheel for boats? Brilliant!

Schroedinger

@hannah I totally get what you mean.

But also, having visited and been on it, and learned about it all, it is an incredible piece of innovation and engineering.

orbit da dragon

@hannah @khyme holy crap i love the design of this it feels like a sculpture

wordsmith ⁂

@hannah is that the one with an integrated salmon cannon?

Or did I hallucinate that?

geographile

@hannah looks like a great redstone challenge, though.

LearningToFly

@hannah It holds the top position on my bucket list. (Kelpies included)

Rose, The Sword Vixen

@hannah Oops! Outta money! Time to bulldoze a police station.

Kevin Russell

@hannah

That, is a folly. And therefore the UK.
Governed by boys with nannies.

Medea Vanamonde🏳️‍⚧️ ♀

@hannah so…we are living in the Thunderbirds are Go timeline

sortius

@hannah it's really cool, and 100% active. Cruising the Cut (and many other narrowboat channels) have done videos going down/up it

DELETED

@hannah the falkirk wheel is to simcity what the swindon roundabout is to cities skylines

Airis Damon

@hannah Looks like it was designed by Escher, and I dig it.

hybrid havoc

@hannah Does... that do what I think it does?

Edit: It does! Cool!

🐻 John 🏳️‍⚧️

@hannah Imagine the boats just shooting out of the top tube like the salmon cannon

Russell1898

@hannah Thank-you! I just added the Falkirk Wheel to my bucket list!

「ʀᴏʙᴇʀᴛ」

@hannah @blikkie the Cycling World Championships road cycling race passed it yesterday, it was shown with great detail and pride, very impressive!

Cher Tailor

@hannah 1) Why is it brown? 2) Why are there boats? 3) Why is it BROWN??

Christian von Schack 🇳🇴

@hannah Looks like something Iain M Banks would dream up for the Culture

Dragon

@hannah youtube.com/watch?v=qHO9gARac- and of course Tom Scott did a video on it. (I wanted to see how it worked)

Dr. Guillermo Power :verified:

@hannah it’s an incredibly over the top solution, and I approve of that approach.

simplism

@hannah there has to be some kind of spillway for the water flow, but I don't see it

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