Mechanical principles — gears, levers, pulleys
T-Level: Engineering and Manufacturing: Mechanical principles — gears, levers, pulleys
What you'll learn
- 1
Imagine you're riding a bike 🚲 — when you pedal, the chain turns a gear at the back wheel. That's a simple machine called a gear system!
- 2
What happens when two gear wheels are meshed together?
- 3
Let's calculate the gear ratio of a 20-tooth gear driving a 40-tooth gear.
- 4
Drag the gear slider to set a 3:1 gear ratio — the driven gear has 30 teeth, how many teeth on the driver?
- 5
A driver gear with 15 teeth turns a driven gear with 45 teeth. What is the gear ratio?
- 6
A lever is a stiff bar that pivots on a fixed point called a fulcrum. Think of a seesaw in the park 🛝 — you push down on one end, and the other end goes up.
- 7
Drag the fulcrum to make the lever lift a heavy load with less effort. Place the fulcrum closer to the load.
- 8
A pulley is a wheel with a rope around it. If you pull the rope down, what happens to the load?
Practise Mechanical principles — gears, levers, pulleys with Whizlo
Free AI-tutored lessons, unlimited practice questions, and progress tracking for ages 16–18. Aligned to the UK National Curriculum.