Leonardo Da Vinci And His Engineering Drawings

Engineers design, build and maintain just about everything in society, from homes, bridges and hospitals. However, for someone to call themselves an engineer it is not such a simple task. To be an engineer it takes years of dedication and hard work, and also involves a large amount of natural artistic talent and the ability to visualize complex inventions in the mind. However, with the computer software’s in todays age so advanced, many engineers forget about the very important historical roots in which the profession stemmed from and all the amazing engineering pioneers that hand crafted all their ideas that seemed the impossible into a reality. Without the use of any software, all this was possible because the pioneers of engineering were so brilliant and creative; although, there are many amazing historical engineers. One man in particular left a very large impact on society forever, and his name was Leonardo Da Vinci.

Leonardo Da Vinci was born in a small town called Florence, Italy. He grew up with a love and passion for how things worked and had so many ideas of what could be invented. He also always had an interest in how it could be created and function in the real world. Da Vinci was such an interesting and fascinating man because most the amazing engineers and artists of all time have had a background of attending the most well known and prestigious institutions. However, Da Vinci never attended any type of school, he was a self-made man with a hunger and desire for knowledge.

He is most well known for his beautiful painting called the Mona Lisa, being the grandfather to aviation and the creator for vehicles of warfare. The piece of artwork known as the Mona Lisa was painted by Da Vinci. The painting was completed in the year of 1503. Leonardo was a very mysterious man; behind every line and edge drawn there was some sort of story or message he was trying to send to the audience. For example, if one were to look closely at the Mona Lisa, a sort of mourning garment that represents the subject in the art work was mourning the death of someone close or a loved one can be seen. The mourning head cover and the Mona Lisa itself has been a mystery for centuries. Different historians and people have their own theories behind what made Da Vinci create such a piece although it is not for sure known. Due to the pure beauty of the artwork, it was stolen from the “Louvre Museum in 1911” and was not found until two years later, the massive scare was that the masterpiece would have been ruined by the thieves, but thankfully it was found and returned safely two years later to the same museum, but is now protected by thick bullet proof glass and a thick barricade.

The amount of questions and potential theories to what caused DaVinci to create such a beautiful piece of artwork are mysterious and contribute greatly to the beauty of the art.Da Vinci was a man born with a mind that naturally revolved around the art of engineering; he was fascinated with anything that involved mechanics. DaVinci had a gift; he had amazing artistic ability and a mind of an inventor which allowed him to clearly draw whatever he was imagining. Da Vinci would always draw descriptive diagrams of whatever he wanted to invent. According to an article on the British Library “DaVinci’s notebook incorporated over 7000 pages of ideas and inventions.” However, it did not take long in the 1500’s for very important people to hear about the amazing artist and inventor. The complex illustrations Da Vinci could draw and apply to real world applications, made him a very popular and desired3man. He was recruited as the Chief Military Engineer in the Popes army to design machines that could be used for war. His most popular invention made for war was the assault boat, which has strong similarities to the modern-day tank.

The popularity Leonardo was getting caused him to become very cautious about his designs, due to at that time there were no copyright laws. The scare of people stealing his amazing ideas, caused DaVinci to begin drawing inventions in code, backwards or even drawn in the wrong sequence. Aside from being a well-known military engineer, Da Vinci had a special interest in robotics and aviation. He is known today as the grandfather to aviation, due to his amazing contributions to what we know today as flight. In the early 1500’s, nothing flew except birds. The way birds flew intrigued Leonardo and fired his ambition to create an object that allowed humans to fly. During those times there was no prior research Leonardo could use to help him create a flying object. This was simply due to the fact there was no prior research to base his future invention from. He observed the way birds flew, and their ability to maneuver so effortlessly. Da Vinci wanted to design something that acted much like a bird, so what he did was design a machine that gave humans similar components as birds. This invention was called “The Flying Machine”, which was man powered. This machine used pedals to power two cranks that produced a forward movement, and wings attached to the subject’s arms that were used to create a lift force by flapping them, much alike how birds flap and angle their wings to produce lift forces. Unfortunately, due to the lack of knowledge in the aviation industry at that time, the invention never was able to create any type of flight. DaVinci, was a very ambitious man and went back to his book of drawing and came up with another idea, similar the flying machine, but with a twist. It did not take long before Da Vinci gave flight another attempt.

The next machine Leonardo would design, was called the “Helicopter”. The original idea Da Vinci proposed, is what gave 4 today’s helicopter its name. The helicopter Da Vinci designed, looked like a massive screw. The helicopter was to be powered by humans, due to the fact that the invention of engines was not around yet. A problem Leonardo came to realize, is that one human was not creating enough power to create flight. As well, the aerodynamics of the flying machine were off. He believed there needed to be more area in the wings to generate a lift force. To create flight, Da Vinci designed the helicopter to be powered by four humans, pushing shafts in a circle in hope to create enough power for the helicopter to pull itself into the air. Unfortunately, the helicopter never made it off the ground, due simply to a common problem Da Vinci was faced with. The weight to power ratio was much too high. Although the flying machine and helicopter never got to create flight, little did Da Vinci know that his designs and application would be modified and widely used as the most important machines society has. Society uses helicopters to save people in remote areas by bringing food, supplies and also moves military personnel around in remote areas to defeat enemies. As well, planes are used today, to move people around much faster to places all over the globe. Without Da Vinci’s original ideas, it is not known if humanity would have ever seen flight.

Da Vinci was also the first person to design a robot in history. The robot he designed could perform human duties by sitting, standing, walking and moving the neck, jaw, and arms. Leonardo’s original robot design was based off his interest in human anatomy. He wanted to design something that could operate exactly like a human could. Once people saw that he could design something so spectacular, the Venetian army wanted him to design robots that could operate in combat. DaVinci designed robots the army could use for combat. The way the robots operated was in the places that human muscles would he replaced them with pulley systems. The pulley systems were powered by gears and cranks that propelled the robot. Although the military wanted Da Vinci to build a weapon that could kill, he was always against the idea of killing people, so he designed the robots to be able to wound the enemy.

The use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawings is very common in todays age. Many people believe that the use of drawing by hand has gone obsolete due to the reliance of CAD drawings. However, this is not the case, engineers need high artistic abilities and techniques because to represent what an engineer pictures in their mind, they must be able to sketch and label what they are visualizing first before using CAD to get a finished product. Da Vinci was the real pioneer of engineering and invention, he had an artistic ability tied with a creative mind. This allowed Leonardo to clearly draw what he was visualizing and lead to many amazing inventions that came much before their time. To obtain a job in today’s very competitive engineering field, engineers seeking employment must prove their artistic abilities on paper before using CAD.

Da Vinci was a very talented artist and engineer; the inventions he had the ability to create in the 1500’s was amazing. With no prior designs to base his ideas off, he used his creativity to create what he was visualizing into a reality. The designs he made in the early 1500’s are still used today in many of the most advanced fields such as aerospace, aviation, and military technology. As well, his painting created centuries ago is still admired and the Mona Lisa brings tourists from all over the world and is recorded as the most valuable paining in the world today. As well the techniques used by Da Vinci to represent his inventions that were created in his mind on paper is still taught to young aspiring engineers in university and college.