1 Comments

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  Zipee 9/21/2009 9:37:08 PM

  I wonder how long a single mouse would power the table? What would one do if the supply of mice was lo limited that the power ran down. Perhaps you would have to go to a pet shop and get a few white mice as fuel. But that might get to be costly. Ah, well, nothing's perfect. On the flypaper model, what happens to the used flypaper? Presumably it could not be reused, like a continuous belt. So it probably has a take-up roll that must be taken off and discarded. If that is so, why not simply leave the flies stuck to it, as we did in the old days? The power to operate the take-up roller could easily be provided with a simple spring-driven timer. If you wanted to hide this fact from the user, you could put the winding mechanism in the supply roll, and when the user pulled down the flypaper to attach it to the take-up it would wind the spring. Ah, but that is too old fashioned. Rube Goldberg, where are you now that we need you? Lessee... "Fly A lands on flypaper B and starts buzzing, attracting the attention of dog C who jumps up on top of table D with short leg E causing table to tip, resulting in bowling ball F to roll over the side on to tail G of cat H which then screams in pain, and climbs curtain I, which is suspended from pully J and connects around drum K to sash weight L, with cord M, the weight pulling said cord and causing the drum to retract the said sash weight, which when the cat drops off the curtain then causes said drum to counter rotate at a rate governed by escapement N and thus drive take-up spool O at the optimum velocity.