St.peter Museum of Inventions
Representing: Inventions and Inventors
Leonardo Da Vinci
(1452-1519) Leonardo Da Vinci was an Italian inventor, artist and scientist, Leonardo had lots of interest in engineering and also made detailed sketches on his free time. Such as things like the airplane, the helicopter, the parachute, the submarine and also other things like the armored car and ball bearings.
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Leonardo's Thoughts on the Airplane
Leonardo's most favorite area of study was aviation mostly because he would be amused over the idea of people being able to sore through the sky like a bird. The design of the airplane was inspired by the flight of winged animals. The frames of these flying machines with made out of pine covered in silk for a light weight membrane
Early Era of the Plane
Pine Covered in Silk
This plane was made out of pine for the weight factor. Being mad out of pine this plane became very light weight
Modern day plane
This picture just kind of shows how much the plane machine has evolve over the hundreds of years
The Great Invention of the Parachute
Even though the credit of the Parachute went to Sebastein Lenoman in 1783. Leonardo actually conceived the parachute idea several hundreds of years earlier, before the patent was made up. The canopy on thee parachute was originally a triangular shape rather than the round or oval shape that it is in modern day.
Da Vinci's drawing
Bowl Shaped Canopy's
Military use these type of parachutes when throwing cargo or other large items off planes
Modern day Parachute
Canopy is more rounded or oval shaped
The Ball Bearing
The ball bearing was invented between the years of 1498-1500. Leonardo designed this mechanism to lower friction between two object, such as two metal plates. The ball bearing wasn't patented until about 1792. This type of bearing can be found in engines, kitchen appliances, bicycles and a million other machines. The ball bearing is a big contributor to what the world has come to in the 21st century.
Ball Bearing
Round metal plate that has little round balls around the edge that stay greased and allow object to move freely with out major rubbing
The Helicopter
The design was drawn up in 1493, nearly 450 years earlier than an actual helicopter would take flight. This idea popped into Leonardo's head after studying the seeds of a maple tree. This is the seed that most of us always played with as children, getting a joy out of throwing it in the air and watching it spin as it falls to the ground. Da Vinci began to wonder if it would be possible to reverse that spin so instead of it going down the spin would reverse and make the seed go up. That's when the helicopter came into play.