Archimedes' Claw
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Illustrations and Animations
Scale Models


A 1/60-th scale model built by Harry G. Harris, Professor of Structural Engineering, Drexel University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA) in 1999. Notice the use of a sliding leaden counterweight that provides the torque needed to lift the ship.

Enlarged QuickTIme movie:
  805 kilobytes, 462 x 612 pixels, 20 frames, 9 seconds.

Four more QuickTime movies are available:

   Movie 1 | Movie 2 | Movie 3 | Movie 4

Seven still views are also available, each 40-90 kilobytes, 640 x 480 pixels:

   View 1 | View 2 | View 3 | View 4 | View 5 | View 6 | View 7

The following paper discusses this model and its operation in detail:

"A Formidable War Machine: Construction and Operation of Archimedes' Iron Hand"
     by Chris Rorres and Harry G. Harris
This paper was presented at the Symposium on Extraordinary Machines and Structures in Antiquity held in Olympia, Greece, on August 20-23, 2001. You can download this paper in the following two formats:
PDF document (rorres_harris.pdf) 1.6 megabytes
Microsoft Word document (rorres_harris.doc) 3.7 megabytes

A scale model built by Massimo Gozzo and Francesca Pedalino as part of their degree requirements in Architecture at the Università degli Studi di Reggio Calabria (Reggio Calabria, Italy : July, 2000).

Enlarged image: 263 kilobytes, 1200 x 907 pixels.
Another image: 237 kilobytes, 1200 x 933 pixels.


A 1/20-th scale model built by Prof. Roberto Iannò of the Instituto Statale d'Arte (Syracuse, Sicily, Italy : 1999).

Enlarged image: 229 kilobytes, 818 x 648 pixels.

Four more views are available:

   View 1 | View 2 | View 3 | View 4


A model designed by students from Smith College (Northampton, Massachusetts, USA), located in Smith's Museum of Ancient Inventions. A larger image of this model and a description of it can be found at the following site:

http://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/shipshaker2.html


A model of an Archimedes' claw as an underwater ship shaker built entirely of Legos by Richard Wright. This model was a finalist in the 1998 Ancient Theme Lego Building Contest.

More photographs and a description of the operation of the model can be found at the following site:

http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~erikred/brick/classic/wright.html