A few days ago we received a comment on an older blog post about Scribbling Machines essentially asking what is the physics phenomenon that causes on offset weight on a motor to shake, whereas a balanced weight will not move the machine very much.
After informally polling all of the Tinkering Studio staff, we realized that none of us had a solid explanation for what is going on there, and so we turned to our resident superstar physics expert, Senior Scientist Paul Doherty. His explanation was so great, and involved such amusing phenomena “stick and slip friction,” that we decided to film it and post it as its own stand-alone explanation. So here it is, for your educational pleasure, Scribbling Machines Physics with Paul Doherty:
