Gyroscopic exercise

tool

A gyroscopic exercise tool is a device used to exercise the wrist as part of physical therapy or in
order to build palm, forearm and finger strength. It can also be used as a unique demonstration of some
aspects of rotational dynamics. The device consists of a tennis ball-sized plastic or metal shell
around a free-spinning mass, which is started with a short rip string. Once the gyroscope inside is
going fast enough, a person holding the device can accelerate the spinning mass to high revolution
rates by moving the wrist in a circular motion.

A gyroscopic wrist exerciser.

History
 Mechanics

The device consists of a spinning mass inside an outer shell. The shell almost completely covers the
mass inside, with only a small round opening allowing the gyroscope to be manually started. The
spinning mass is fixed to a thin metal axle, each end of which is trapped in a circular, equatorial
groove in the outer shell. A lightweight ring with two notches in it for the ends of the axle rests in the
groove. This ring can slip in the groove; it holds the spinning gyroscope centered in the shell,
preventing the two from coming into contact (which would slow the gyro down), but still allowing the
orientation of the axle to change.

Since the spinning mass is balanced, the only possibility to speed up the rotation is for the sides of
the groove to exert forces on the ends of the axle. Furthermore, the normal and axial forces will have
no effect, so tangential force must be provided by friction. If the axle is stationary, the friction will
only act to slow down the rotation, but the situation is very different if the axle is turned by applying
a torque.

This can be accomplished by tilting the shell in any direction except in the plane of the groove or
around an axis aligned with the axle, and results in a shift of the axle ends along the groove. The
direction and speed of the shift can be found from the formula for the precession of a gyroscope: the
applied torque is equal to the cross product of the angular velocity of precession and the angular
momentum of the spinning mass. The most important observation here is that the direction is such
that, if the torque is large enough, the friction between the axle and the surface of the groove will
speed up the rotation.

This may seem odd. After all, if the axle were shifting in a horizontal groove, the friction on one end
that acts to speed up the rotation would be canceled by the friction at the other end, operating in the
opposite direction. The difference is that a torque is being applied, so one end of the axle is pushing
against one side of the groove, while the other end is pushing against the other side. Likewise, it does
not matter in which direction the torque is applied. If the torque is reversed, each end of the axle will
then be pressing against the opposite side of the groove, but the direction of precession is also
reversed. The only restriction is that the relative speed of the surface of the axle and the side of the
groove due to precession, , must exceed the relative speed due to the rotation of the
spinning mass, . The minimum torque required to meet this condition is ,
where I is the moment of inertia of the spinning mass, and ω is its angular velocity.

Since an acceleration of the rotation will occur regardless of the direction of the applied torque, as
long as it is large enough, the device will function without any fine-tuning of the driving motion. The
tilting of the shell does not have to have a particular phase relationship with the precession or even
to have the same frequency. Since sliding (kinetic) friction is usually nearly as strong as static
(sticking) friction, it is also not necessary to apply precisely the value of torque which will result in
the axle rolling without slipping along the side of the groove. These factors allow beginners to learn
to speed up the rotation after only a few minutes of practice.

By applying the proportionality of the force of friction to the normal force, , where is
the kinetic coefficient of friction, it can be shown that the torque spinning up the mass is a factor of
smaller than the torque applied to the shell. Since frictional force is essential for
the device's operation, the groove must not be lubricated.[1]

As explained, the energy supplied by the external momentum (the hand and arm muscles) can not be
directly converted into the rotational energy of the gyroscope around its own axis, but it is converted
into the energy of precession rotation. Due to the friction between the gyroscope shaft and the sides
of the groove, part of this energy is converted into energy of rotation around the gyroscope's own axis
accelerating it. This happens when there is friction and a round object, like a bowling ball, is thrown
along a horizontal surface. Part of the ball's kinetic energy is converted to rotational energy due to
friction.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Gyroscopic exercise tools.

1. Articles on the physics of the device (in approximately increasing order of sophistication):
Higbie, J. (February 1, 1980). "The Physics of the Dyna Bee". The Physics Teacher. 18 (2): 147–8.
Bibcode:1980PhTea..18..147H (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1980PhTea..18..147H) .
doi:10.1119/1.2340452 (https://doi.org/10.1119%2F1.2340452) . ISSN 0031-921X (https://www.worldcat.or
g/issn/0031-921X) .

Heyda, P. G. (2000). "Roller Ball Dynamics". Mathematics Today. 36 (9).

Heyda, P. G. (October 1, 2002). "Roller Ball Dynamics Revisited". American Journal of Physics. 70 (10):
1049–51. Bibcode:2002AmJPh..70.1049H (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AmJPh..70.1049H) .
doi:10.1119/1.1499508 (https://doi.org/10.1119%2F1.1499508) . ISSN 0002-9505 (https://www.worldcat.org/i
ssn/0002-9505) .

Gulick, D. W.; O’Reilly, O. M. (June 1, 2000). "On the Dynamics of the Dynabee". Journal of Applied
Mechanics. 67 (2): 321–5. Bibcode:2000JAM....67..321G (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2000JAM....67..3
21G) . doi:10.1115/1.1304914 (https://doi.org/10.1115%2F1.1304914) . ISSN 0021-8936 (https://www.worldc
at.org/issn/0021-8936) .
 Petrič, Tadej; Curk, Boris; Cafuta, Peter; Žlajpah, Leon (June 1, 2010). "Modelling of the Robotic
Powerball®: A Nonholonomic, Underactuated and Variable Structure-Type System". Mathematical and
Computer Modelling of Dynamical Systems. 16 (4): 327–346. doi:10.1080/13873954.2010.484237 (https://do
i.org/10.1080%2F13873954.2010.484237) . hdl:10.1080/13873954.2010.484237 (https://hdl.handle.net/10.1
080%2F13873954.2010.484237) . S2CID 120513329 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:1205133
29) .

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