So in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, Rube Goldberg contraptions, and Three Stooges reruns, we see that a dynamite explosion is often initiated by a box with a plunger that is actuated by pushing downward.
My question is, why the plunger and what does it do? I’m led to understand it’s called a “dynamo” which is a sort of electric generator but I can’t figure how the plunger arrangement creates and delivers the charge in the correct way.
If you don’t feel like clicking the link, the short, simplified version is that the plunger turns the dynamo and an energy-storing flywheel as it’s pushed down by engaging a straight gear on the plunger rod with a pinion gear on the dynamo. When the the plunger reaches the bottom of its travel, it depresses a switch which closes the circuit. BOOM. Coyote is toast.
Coyote? Toast? Surely not. Nothing appears to daunt that member of the canine race; he just gets covered in soot and goes off, coughing slightly, to plan his next dastardly attack on the Road Runner.
Wile E. Coyote always got my sympathy - he was always getting beaten up, without any reward whatsoever.