Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Giant Machines
One thing that has always amazed me is the ability of human beings to construct large objects. Stationary objects are one thing: skyscrapers, bridges, dams, even scientific devices like the Large Hadron Collider in Europe are things to marvel at. But large manmade objects that move impress me even more.
When my submarine arrived in Newport News Shipyard and Drydock for upgrades, I went to see this legendary crane named Goliath. It was the crane used to lift the island of an aircraft carrier and gently lower it into place (the ultimate in modular construction). Since then, it’s been replaced by the even larger Big Blue. Here are a couple of pictures of Big Blue in action on the USS Gerald R. Ford:
In the late ’90s, I became aware of a bigger piece of macroengineering equipment, the Bagger 293 earthmover, built in Germany (they love building big things). Here’s a picture of the earthmover transporting itself to a new dig site and a link for info:
One interesting thing about the 80-mile journey to the new dig site – no one noticed until the Bagger finally arrived, but the large machine had captured a bulldozer. The dozer was effectively camouflaged by the sheer spectacle of the Bagger:
You can do an internet search and find dozens of examples of other macroengineered machines: giant dump trucks, huge tunnel borers, jumbo aircraft, supertankers, and such. But the crane and earthmover stand out to me as examples of someone thinking, “You know, we could build this really big thing,” then go out and do it.
Published in Technology
Holy cow. Thanks. Wow.
I share your fascination with this machined bigness. I particularly like the enormous diesel engines of the giant container ships, the largest of which is four stories tall, weighs more than two thousand tons and produces more than 100,000 hp.
I think it’s a guy thing.
Like this?
https://www.zmescience.com/science/biggest-most-poweful-engine-world/
Easiest way to keep young boys distracted: Pop in a videotape of giant machines.
Admonish yourselves for these sexist posts.
The Bagger is an incredible work of machinery, but I doubt its ultimate practicality. How many times has it been used? How much will it cost to disassemble and dispose when there are no more mines to excavate within a direct and feasible line of relocation?
The mega-cranes and crane-loaded assembly houses that get used over and over again are more impressive. Submarines are much more impressive.
I wonder what @gldiii and other Ricochet pilots or engineers think about advancements in commercial and private aircraft technology in recent decades. How much have regulations and dumb market forces got in the way of transformative innovations?
Also, as cool as big machines can be, I wish Ricochet included a few engineers who work in robotics, toys, and more accessible machines. A few members have rebuilt automobiles as a hobby.
Are you sure there aren’t any here?
The transporters that were built for the Apollo program were adapted from mining machinery.
They had the ability to carry the 363 foot tall Saturn V rocket from the assembly building to the launch pad, including climbing a 50-something foot “hill” at the pad (to accommodate the flame trench) with such precision that the top of the rocket never moved out of vertical more than the diameter of a basketball.
I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the last two months watching “big machine” videos on YouTube.
I enjoy the “moving big heavy things with trucks” ones. Like this:
I write industrial automation and robotics software for a living. I think there’s at least one other industrial automation guy here.
Funny when you mentioned the Germans building something of this magnitude, my thoughts ran to this not so well conceived mega machine.
@percival
You all have to stop with the giant machines. I’ve got to get work done, and don’t have time for this.
Still….
Then of course there’s this:
We’re here. It’s just we’re shy and socially inept . . .
Interesting enough. It was never dissembled merely left in place. A particular obsession of mine, in addition to big machines, is abandoned places and pieces of technology. The Bagger was featured on Mysteries of the Abandoned, it’s use has been discontinued as it is no longer economically feasible and it is rusting away in a field in Germany. It did in its day however excavated a truly staggering amount of coal, so my sense is it was economically viable to build and operate for a time; however, its day has passed.
I must ignore. I must ignore. I must ignore. I have spent too many afternoons lost in YouTube trails on fascinating stuff like this. (-:
Virtually everybody that wants to get into the consumer electronics hardware business moves to Shenzhen, where surplus electronics parts are cheap and plentiful. It’s often called the “Silicon Valley Of Hardware”.
If you want to tinker with electronics and robotics in North America, you gotta pay way more for your parts and materials, and oftentimes the retail price!
I could definitely use a demethanizer after a meal of beans and cabbage, amirite?
Illustrating my earlier point, even the guys who work in robotics really work on software rather than hardware.
I love big man-made stuff including machinery. However, sometimes bigger isn’t better.
The Beaver Falls Cutlery Works exhibited the world’s largest knife and fork at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition of Philadelphia. The knife and fork set cost the company $1,500 dollars to make and whether or not that was money well spent for the company’s fortunes I don’t know.
The Bagger 293 looks like something out of Star Wars.
I’ve always been fascinated by the big dump trucks that are used in strip-mining. And not only the trucks, but the tires they use.
Whenever I travel over US Highway 2, over Stevens Pass, I cast a thought back at the men who built the original highway, with next to no automation, and certainly no big earth-movers. Human strength and ingenuity are amazing.
I have always heard that the Saturn V rocket is the biggest/most powerful engine in the world.
Did you read the comments on that article?
I guess someone ran away with the spoon.
Those F1 engines are being rebuilt but the plans and construction drawings have all been lost. Engineers have had to reverse engineer the engines.
The fuel pump on one Saturn V F-1 engine put out 55,000 horsepower, all by itself.
Of course, the whole first stage only ran for about two and a half minutes, and the engine on a container ship needs to run reliably for weeks at a time, so…
Long ago I had the opportunity to go aboard a gigantic dragline. Wowza. It looked just like a child’s construction toy, just on a monumental scale.