The buzzer—a novel physical perspective on a classical toy

Abstract

We present a physically interesting toy, which is easily constructed and operated-the so-called buzzer. In spite of its simplicity, its physical analysis turns out to be rather complex. Thus, it comes as no surprise that most of its users are not familiar with the underlying physical mechanism. In this paper we propose a physical model which allows for the qualitative and quantitative description of the fundamental physical properties of the buzzer and report on the good agreement between theoretical and experimental data. The model is designed to give a basis for further simplification.

Twist and Measure: Characterizing the Effective Radius of Strings and Bundles under Twisting Contraction

“…Specific values of reported, or assumed, effective twist radii are as follows. For the case of two strands twisted together, many authors agree with the proposal by Shoham 8 that the effective twist radius equals the geometrical radius of a single strand 9,10,[12][13][14][15]17 . For multi-strand bundles, Guzek et al 9 suggest that the effective radius should be half the distance between the outermost strands, but note that many potential packings are possible for a given number of strands.…”

“…More specific to this work, pairs and bundles of strings are also useful based on their contraction and the related ability to transfer torque under twist. For twisted-string actuators [8][9][10][11][12][13] , as well as for "button-on-string" or "buzzer" toys [14][15][16] , it is usually accepted that length contracts with twist according to…”

Hand-powered ultralow-cost paper centrifuge

“…By optimizing the buzzer for high-speed operation and driving it using human hands, we achieve roughly two orders of magnitude faster rotation speeds than previously reported (15). Motivated by this experimental finding, we develop a detailed theoretical model that faithfully captures the extensive parameter-space of this system.…”

Twist and measure: characterizing the effective radius of strings and bundles under twisting contraction

“…9,10 More specific to this work, pairs and bundles of strings are also useful based on their contraction and the related ability to transfer torque under twist. For twisted-string actuators, 11–16 as well as for “button-on-string” or “buzzer” toys, 17–19 it is usually accepted that a straight length contracts with twist according towhere L 0 is the initial length, r is an effective twist radius of the string or bundle, and θ is the axial twist angle of one end with respect to the other. This may be rationalized via Fig.…”