Customer Reviews

Basic Machines and How They Work

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I borrowed this book from a friend and held on to it for almost six months, and in that time I poured over it. It's EXTREMELY useful if you're doing model building or playing with simulators and stuff. I use it with LEGOs and LEGO Mindstorm robotics kits. It taught me ALL SORTS of secrets about motion and principles behind gears and gear-driven mechanisms. Just a great book, I highly reccommend it if you're looking for a great reference for basic mechanical devices. I had to buy my own copy to have.

I don't know how the military does it, but somehow they are able to train people quickly and effectively whereas academia gives long-winded answers that get most students lost in derivations.

Buy this book if you, like me, want to understand simple machines (levers to engines). It's straight to the point, the way I like it.

As a Mechanical Engineering student I found the book to be extremely useful. I was already familiar with most of the theories from Dynamics and Statics, but it was cool to see how non textbooks refer to certain things (IE rather than saying the pivot point they call it the fulcrum). While we generally go over gear theories and calculations in Dynamics, we certainly don't get into their classifications so that was another useful piece of knowledge that I picked up. The last two chapters were extremely knowledgeable, since neither was in any of my textbooks. The last two chapters covered power trains and the internal combustion engine and were surprisingly in depth. I would highly recommend this book for any Engineering student seeking to get an out of the textbook perspective on your Mechanics classes, or to pick up some information on the inner workings of the engine.

Old but good. Explains things well and although the illustrations are a bit dated (so are Da Vinci's!), it is a very good and interesting book.

Good basic info about the internal combustion engine but could use a revision. There is alot of talk about the side valve, Briggs and Stratton type engines but very little discussion about overhead valves and NO information about overhead cam engines. Other than the need for a revision this is a pretty decent book.

Are you looking for a book that will help get more mechanically minded? This is it. This book is written for Navy personnel, yet it is relevant to anyone who needs to know more about simple machines. Check out the table of contents.

This book is great for those of us who hate but can do math, while at the same time like to learn by example. This book was written for sailors. With that said all the complex crap about calculating the use and interaction of simple machines is well taught & illistrated & explained.

Good, clear illustrations. Internal combustion engine explanation is especially good. Exploded views, cutaway diagrams, and metaphorical examples help to explain the concepts. Progression from simple-to-complex is well-paced, too.

A great reference book that my dad gave me when I was in the service. It helped me understand the basics of the many devices I was working with in the various engineering groups. I kept it on my bookshelf through college and my kids have used it since for their high school physics. We found it to be a clear, well written companion book for any physics class. Yes it could stand some updating here and there but it does approach things mechanical in a simple and direct manner than the typical texts

This book is very clear, has a lot of drawings and a lot of interesting military nautical references such as cannon locks, bullets, etc. Nice book indeed.