From da Vinci's mechanisms to MEMS, Duffield exhibit spans machine evolution

Frank Moon, Joseph Ford Professor of Mechanical Engineering and curator of the Reuleaux Collection in Duffield Hall, poses with one of the historic models.

In a corner of the Duffield Hall atrium adjoining Upson Hall on Cornell's engineering quad, the historic meets the modern: a permanent exhibit of 230 models of German engineer Franz Reuleaux's 19th-century kinematic mechanisms.

The devices were purchased in 1882 by Cornell President Andrew Dickson White with an $8,000 gift from Hiram Sibley of Rochester, an early university benefactor. Eventually, Cornell purchased 266 models, of which 230 survive.

"Reuleaux was trying to make sense of the proliferation of machines at the height of the Industrial Revolution, systematically analyzing and classifying new mechanisms," said Francis Moon, Cornell's Joseph Ford Professor of Mechanical Engineering, who is curator of the Reuleaux Collection. "He hoped to achieve in machine engineering the logical order that Linneaus had brought to biology. We hope that Reuleaux's library of mechanisms will inspire the creation of new machines, including micromachines, using the technology of the new nanotechnology center."

Altogether Reuleaux created more than 800 models of machine mechanisms. He then authorized a Berlin company, Gustav Voigt, to copy his models so that technical schools could use them for teaching engineers about machines.

During World War II, most of the remaining models that had been kept in a collection in Berlin were destroyed, leaving Cornell with the world's major collection of Reuleaux's mechanisms. In November 2003, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) designated the Cornell Reuleaux Kinematic Model Collection as a National Historic Landmark Collection.

The models, however, have long been familiar to Cornell students. Faculty in mechanical engineering, mathematics and architecture use the models in the classroom to teach mathematical principles of mechanisms as well as machine design and drawing. Over the past two years, students and teachers from area schools have visited the collection, as have aerospace engineers seeking ideas for micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), robotic machines, space satellite applications and biomechanical prostheses. The collection also has attracted scholars from Japan, Italy, Germany and Australia in the past year alone.

Cornell has received two research grants to document and archive the collection on the Web. One, called Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library, is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The project, nearing completion, will enable students to go online to learn about the machines, see videos of the devices in motion and access rare books on the history of machines in the Cornell Library. The Web site http://kmoddl. library.cornell.edu, which is part of Cornell's engineering outreach program, also will be of use to school programs in science, mathematics and technology.

The theme of the Duffield Reuleaux exhibit is the evolution of machine invention. The six displays feature mechanical models relating to the history of Cornell engineering, the machines of Leonardo da Vinci and Reuleaux, engines, kinematics and mathematics, clock mechanisms and modern applications of kinematic mechanisms.

In addition to the 230 models, the collection contains 70 other rare mechanical models and measuring instruments, including 19th-century slide rules and mechanical calculating devices.

Reuleaux clearly took pride in Cornell's purchase of his machines. He wrote to White in 1882: "I only wish I could have the pleasure to open the cases with you, to show and explain the objects at once to you and your friends. They will, I am sure, make you impatient for the next series."