Hey! Hey! I'm Mr. O. Here with another... Oh wow! Moment at the Children's Museum of Houston. Today we're exploring the Gears table and how does it work exhibit at the Children's Museum of Houston? Gears are a type of simple machine basically wheels with teeth. A gear train forms when teeth are locked. Like here, one gear turns another gear. Each gear train has two parts, a driver gear. That's the one that you turn. And a follower gear. That's the gear that gets turned. In one kind of gear train, a large gear turns a smaller gear. This is called gearing up. A gear up train is the sort of system you see in bicycles. When you turn the larger gear, the smaller gear turns very quickly. Right, and a gear up train, the follower gear turns faster so you get more speed. But like all simple machines, there is a trade-off. Less forces produced by the gears in exchange for the extra speed. In another kind of gear train, a small gear turns a larger gear. This is called gearing down. A gear down train is the sort of system you see in amusement park rides like a carousel. When you turn the smaller gear, the larger gear turns very slowly. Correct. In a gear down train, the follower gear turns slower so you get less speed. The trade-off in this case is more forces produced even though it has less speed. Let me show it to you in a different way. Before we begin, remember, science is fun, but it can also be dangerous. So always have a responsible adult helping you. We're going to be testing gear trains that gear up and down. We're using Lego gears. But you can also buy gears at hobby shops, hardware stores, or on the internet. We've built the housing to hold the gears. The gears can be switched out pretty easily with just some minor changes to the axle position. The two strings hanging down allow us to visually see how fast each axle turns, while the weight at each end of the follower allows us to feel how much effort is needed with each type of gear. For our first gear train, we're going to gear up. This large gear will turn the smaller gear. Check it out. The axle with the smaller gear has wound up all the string. But the axle with the large gear still has lots of string left. Let's do gear down. Look, again, the smaller gear has wound up all the string. Or the large gear still has lots of string left. Yeah, but it was a lot easier to lift this one up than it was in the gear up test. But look at these gears. I wonder what would happen if we changed out the gears. Sounds like something to try at home. Or maybe another episode. This has been another Oh Wow moment from the Children's Museum of Houston. We hope your mind can come out to play.