Originally Posted by aquinas
DS2.5 is into auto mechanics lately. Today I built a model with a small and large gear and a flat piston out of cardboard and some nuts and bolts to show DS tangibly how rotary motion can be translated into reciprocating motion and vice versa.

When I asked him if he knew what the piston was, he said without hesitation, "It's a crankshaft." When I asked him how he knew that, he said, "Because I looked at it, thought about it, and figured it out." Um, yes. I actually didn't know the answer (I thought it was "drive shaft"), so I looked it up and saw that, as usual, DS was right.

It took a moment to sink in: my 2-year-old is teaching ME auto mechanics, apparently. I didn't see that coming. Talk about stuff you can't mention on the playground. I am going to be in over my head when he's older...

Isn't the crankshaft technically the thing that works the pistons in and out of the cylinder as opposed to being the piston itself?

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