Bearing

The cam is attached to a shaft, like this, and we can now use a crank handle to turn the shaft and cam round and round: the circular motion.

Snail cams can be used to make an action happen at a regular time. For example, they can be used to make a clock sound a bell every hour.

Ball bearing

This is a triangle cam mechanism. As the cam turns, the triangular shape of the cam means the follower drops after each point of the triangle.

Rollingbearing

This movement could be forwards and backwards, up and down or side to side - as long as the movement is repeated and in a straight line.

Rolling elementbearing

A cam is a simple mechanism that converts rotary motion (movement that goes round in a circle) into linear motion (movement in a straight line).

As it turns, the follower keeps still until it meets the top of the spiral. This pushes it up, before it drops down the flat edge of the snail shape.

Cam mechanisms convert circular motion, turning around and around, into linear motion, which might be side to side, or up and down in a straight line.

The shape of the cam is what affects the motion of the follower, and cams come in all shapes and sizes. Round, oval, triangle, and even snail-shaped.

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Cams are pretty hard to spot in real life, as they are often hidden inside machines such as engines, printing machines, sewing machines, or toys.

The follower falls and remains still when the bottom end of the pear cam makes contact with it. This makes an up and down movement with short pauses.