I designed a buildable version of the machine from Contact

Would you buy this pointless gadget? How much would you be willing to pay?

I’ve been rather obsessed with ‘spinny ring things’ for a long time. Used Inventor to finally try and create something that can spin continuously. I think it has a calming effect.

This should be the size of an average earth globe.

Demonstration of the inner inners. A single motor runs the input pinion and a planetary gearbox (not yet shown) steps that motor down to rotate the first ring on-axis. Contra-rotating super high ratio bevel gearing more than doubles the rpm of each subsequent ring.

Challenge will be to get it to run as silently as possible with smooth motion.

Due to prime numbers in the gearing, spinning at the rate of the first video, the machine won’t repeat a combined position for over 60 years. Used MathCAD to math that and it seems to be quite a cool result.

And yes I am fun at parties :-D