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Comment by StavrosK | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how far it could go with a camera regulating the speed according to how far behind or ahead the slinky was. Probably 140 steps, still.

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See his follow-up for discussion of that and other issues: http://woodgears.ca/toys/slinky2.html

It had initially been my intention to have a camera and regulate it, but once I realized how hard it was to keep it going reliably, I decided not to bother with that. If a slinky slinks, and nobody is watching, does it matter? And if someone is watching, it's fun to be doing the cranking to keep it going :)

> If a slinky slinks, and nobody is watching, does it matter?

Man, asking all the hard questions. It reminds me of the "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" question. Maybe you could live stream it though.

Also note that there are juggling machines that are stable without any active control [1]. Designing a self stabilizing slinky escalator could be really hard though (if not impossible).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kj36Z5ZIC6Q

There is another video on his YouTube channel where he talks about design considerations to make the Slinky slink more reliably.

Also, Hi Matthias! I'm a big fan of your YouTube videos, it's really great to see one make it to HN (even if it wasn't linked directly to you).

Well you could launch a website istheslinkyslinking.com with a live cam that shows your contraption at work with the regulation and everything ;)

You could even ask for donations with a "keep the slinky slinking" button, so you could pay for electricity and server.

It's not like nobody will ever watch it again. Coming back the next day and enjoying the surprise of "wow - it's still going!", or even telling others "it's been doing this for the last 3 months", would be nice.

If you do another video of the slinky steps in action, have someone stick their face in that window at some random moment for comic effect. ;)

A conical projection from the middle of each step would help recenter the slinky after each drop. Sort of like a docking probe. It could also be made asymmetric to help the high end lift off cleanly for the next drop.

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