The Ratchet Mechanism

Hello everyone, this is a video about 2 types of the ratchet and pawl mechanism (wheel ratchet and parallel ratchet) and how you might go about drawing them or making small models out of cardboard. Please turn on captions for extra instructions.

0:00 Intro
0:20 Wheel Ratchet and Pawl
3:00 Parallel Ratchet and Pawl

Here are some additional notes:

- As you may have noticed, the pawl for the parallel ratchet does not work as well as it does for the first. A better design may be for the pawl to be perpendicular to the ratchet.
- Of course, the pawl is more often than not spring-loaded, but most people are more likely to have a rubber band, so I decided to use that for the mechanism.
- Is your ratchet mechanism not working very smoothly? Try playing around with the tension of the rubber band, many times it is too strong for the cardboard.


Thanks for watching, please leave suggestions or questions in the comments!