Concepts include how simple and compound machines lift things up, roll things along, turn things around, and help your own body work.

Toddlers love machines and things that go, and this colorful picture book by William Low gives them everything they want, from a cement mixer to a helicopter to a backhoe. Six interactive gatefolds extend the original pictures to three pages, revealing something new about each situation. The final double gatefold opens into a very long train and shows all the machines at work! The last spread provides additional information about each machine for young readers to pore over again and again. William Low's classically trained artist's eye adds a new layer to this genre—both parents and children will appreciate the beautiful illustrations, the attention to detail, and the clever situational twists revealed by lifting the flaps of Machines Go to Work. The sequel, Machines Go to Work in the City, continues the interactive fun with more amazing illustrations, details, and information for everyone to enjoy. “The richly colored pages of Machines Go to Work probably could not be more exactly calibrated to entrance the vehicle-oriented, 2-to-6-year-old.” —Wall Street Journal

Get Your Move On! In Making Things Move: DIY Mechanisms for Inventors, Hobbyists, and Artists, you'll learn how to successfully build moving mechanisms through non-technical explanations, examples, and do-it-yourself projects--from kinetic art installations to creative toys to energy-harvesting devices. Photographs, illustrations, screen shots, and images of 3D models are included for each project. This unique resource emphasizes using off-the-shelf components, readily available materials, and accessible fabrication techniques. Simple projects give you hands-on practice applying the skills covered in each chapter, and more complex projects at the end of the book incorporate topics from multiple chapters. Turn your imaginative ideas into reality with help from this practical, inventive guide. Discover how to: Find and select materials Fasten and join parts Measure force, friction, and torque Understand mechanical and electrical power, work, and energy Create and control motion Work with bearings, couplers, gears, screws, and springs Combine simple machines for work and fun Projects include: Rube Goldberg breakfast machine Mousetrap powered car DIY motor with magnet wire Motor direction and speed control Designing and fabricating spur gears Animated creations in paper An interactive rotating platform Small vertical axis wind turbine SADbot: the seasonally affected drawing robot Make Great Stuff! TAB, an imprint of McGraw-Hill Professional, is a leading publisher of DIY technology books for makers, hackers, and electronics hobbyists.

What a big idea! And what big fun: A whopping oversize book of interactive paper models to appeal to every kid who loves big machines—which pretty much covers all of them. These are the coolest big machines that kids love—each re-created in an oversize paper model that, once built, really moves. The book has everything the reader needs to pop out, fold, and create a full-color model of ten big machines: a dump truck, space shuttle, excavator, ladder truck, front loader, concrete mixer, steam locomotive, steamboat, dirigible, Chinook helicopter. Created by Phil Conigliaro, a gifted paper engineer and artist, the models are printed on sturdy card stock; perforated to pop out and fold; require only gluing (no tape or pins); and come with complete, easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions. And, worth repeating, each one moves: Wheels roll and the mixer turns, helicopter blades spin, and the excavator’s boom and bucket raises and lowers. Additionally there’s the story of each machine—how it works, who invented it, what it’s used for. Kids will learn the history of the steam shovel—the smoking, hissing monster that dug the Panama Canal, the largest engineering feat of the 20th century; how astronauts in a space shuttle could withstand the 3,000 degrees of heat created when it returned to Earth; how the world’s largest dump truck can haul a million pounds. It’s big stuff!

Introduces the wheel and axle as a simple machine that can make it easier to move heavy objects, as well as to flatten dough.

What do flagpoles and some window blinds have in common? They use pulleys to perform work! Pulleys are simple machines. They help us to do jobs more easily. But don't take our word for it. Put pulleys to the test with the fun experiments you'll find in this book. As part of the Searchlight BooksTM collection, this series sheds light on a key science question―How Do Simple Machines Work? Hands-on experiments, interesting photos, and useful diagrams will help you find the answer!