HI-BRICKS & DOWELS demonstration video by Peter Dow (YouTube)
Transcript of the video
Hi everybody and welcome to my "H" / "I" Bricks or HI-BRICKS & DOWELS demonstration video.
This is Peter Dow from Aberdeen, Scotland.
There are two components to a HI-BRICKS & DOWELS construction -
- the BRICKS, which you can either describe as "H"-shaped or "I"-shaped, depending on which way you turn them around
- and the DOWELS
http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/5...apefixes1d.jpg
The shape of the "H" or "I" bricks is designed so that they fit together to form a layer or a wall of bricks and importantly, the bricks, just by their very shape, immobilise each other from moving, in one dimension only.
Let's have a look at that.
Let's consider this green brick here as the fixed point.
We can see that it immobilises its neighbouring bricks in one dimension. They can't move with respect to the green brick in this dimension. So that's locked. Even though there is no bricks here or here, the very shape stops it moving in that dimension.
Now the shape doesn't stop the bricks moving with respect to each other in that direction, or in that direction but they are fixed in that one dimension.
Now if we want to make a rigid structure of bricks in all three dimensions but without using mortar or glue so that we can assemble and disassemble the structure whenever we like, what we need next are the DOWELS.
As you can see, the "I" or "H" bricks have shafts running through the corners so that you can run a dowel through the corners - two shafts, four holes per "I" or "H" brick.
And when you assemble the bricks you can slide the dowel in ... and this forms a structure which is rigid in all three dimensions, which is what we need to form structures.
Peter Dow
Author, Scottish National Standard Bearer website
Administrator, the For Freedom Forums
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