Curious Patents

Old patents, brought to life.

Every patent comes with a drawing and a description of how the invention is supposed to work. Curious Patents starts from those original pages and brings the machine to life as an animated model, part by part, using the inventor's own figures and reference letters, until you can watch it work the way the inventor intended.

Then we look at what the patent leaves out: where the idea came from, whether it would actually have worked, and what became of it.

First episode

The only US president to hold a patent. In 1849 Abraham Lincoln patented a way to lift steamboats over sandbars with inflatable air chambers. We brought his drawings to life to see how it works. Coming soon on YouTube.

Reconstructions follow the patents' own figures and are labelled as reconstructions. Each episode will have its sources listed here.