David Bard (far right) and family at Liberty Science Center for Engineers Week

What do you do when you have a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and make a career move into Management Consulting for Drug Development? You keep your love for all things mechanical alive by building elaborate machines with K’Nex!

At least that’s what you do if you’re David Bard. On Sunday, David, his wife, and two children came to Liberty Science Center for Engineers Week again this year to display all the various machines and devices David has built with K’nex. It was a family affair explaining the designs and mechanisms and helping guests play with them.

Every device has a crank or a lever, and guests of all ages enjoyed making the machines twirl, whirl, oscillate, lift, move balls, operate on their own from momentum and stored energy, or slide back and forth and up and down. David displayed a sign for each creation, explaining the mechanical principle involved be it a Chaotic Pendulum, Speed Reducer, Flywheel, Scotch Yoke, Ratchet, or Slider Crank.

Other Engineers Week programming included visits from students at Stevens University and employees from the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

Who knows? Having seen what’s possible perhaps some budding young engineers will be inspired to use their K’nex at home to create some new machines.

This weekend we continue our celebration of engineers with Retro Science: Bridge It!

STEM blog by Harold Clark. Harold is the Director of STEM Educators and Programs here at Liberty Science Center.