BRUCE ANDERSON

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Originally published in the fall 2007 newsletter of The Works

Bruce Anderson makes cool things that work beautifully:   a giant waterwheel, a china cabinet with hand-made stained-glass doors, a trebuchet with a 20 foot sapling as the lever arm.  Actually, his sons Chad and Wade built the trebuchet but you can bet Bruce had something to do with it. 

Bruce has also made three awesome exhibits at The Works:  Pedal Pusher, Light Pipe and Strobe Stream.  Pedal Pusher is a pneumatic or air powered bike with wooden legs that you can move at the hip and knee.  Get the right sequence and timing and the wheels spin.  Bruce’s wife, Karen came up with the name “Pedal Pusher.”  Light Pipe demonstrates a seemingly magical property of light that enables a beam to bounce down a moving waterfall or (in the practical world) along a fiber optic cable.  Strobe Stream uses a strobe light and two pulsing streams of water to show the mesmerizing shapes that result when gleaming globs of water collide. 

Note:  Since this profile was published in 2007, Bruce has also designed and built a rugged re-make of the Raceway, which instantly became a favorite of The Works visitors, and is always surrounded by eager kids testing out Knex vehicles.      

Bruce has a quiet way of taking a problem, chewing it over, trying something out, adjusting, adapting, and eventually coming up with a rugged and elegant solution.  When he was building Light Pipe, he wanted a knob where kids could adjust the angle of a mirror reflecting a laser beam, but not wreck the mirror through over zealous turning.  After studying the problem, he invented a clever lever linkage to solve the problem.  Pedal Pusher entailed a tricky process of adjusting the wooden legs, plus tackling pneumatic control (with expert help from Willis Bowman.)

Bruce’s thoughtful way of building results in having just what you need, just where you need it,  ready before you even think you need it.  Light Pipe is a very heavy exhibit that must be moved periodically to refill the water.  Bruce built hidden handles that can be pushed out, so that the exhibit can be rolled easily on hidden castors.  There’s also a handy valve for draining the tanks, and a tube to connect for draining placed conveniently nearby.  The result is exhibits that the staff as well as our visitors love.   

Bruce is a pipefitter by trade;  Pipefitters design and build the systems of pipes, tubes and other shapes that bring the heat from boilers, furnaces, etc. to just where you need it.   Not an engineer?  "No," Bruce laughs, "I was born to be an engineer, but I never became one."  Well, judging by the projects he tackles and achieves, this guy definitely deserves the rank of Honorary Engineer.  Certainly, he’s a valued volunteer at The Works.  Thank you, Bruce Anderson!

p.s.  Bruce also created one of my favorite definitions of engineering:  Engineering is knowing how to put things together to make something you need.  

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