recent research indicates that cams were used in water-driven trip hammers by the latter half of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC – 8 AD) as recorded in the Huan Zi Xin Lun. Complex pestles were also mentioned in later records such as the Jin Zhu Gong Zan and the Tian Gong Kai Wu, amongst many other records of water-driven pestles. During the Tang dynasty, the wooden clock within the water-driven astronoical device, the spurs inside a water-driven armillary sphere, the automated alarm within a five-wheeled sand-driven clock, artificial paper figurines within a revolving lantern, all utilized cam mechanisms. The Chinese hodometer which utilized a bell and gong mechanism is also a cam, as described in the Song Shi. In the book Nongshu, the vertical wheel of a water-driven wind box is also a cam. Out of these examples, the water-driven pestle and the water driven wind box both have two cam mechanisms inside. Cams that rotated continuously and functioned as integral machine elements were built into Hellenistic water-driven automata from the 3rd century BC. The cam and camshaft later appeared in mechanisms by Al-Jazari and Shooshtari, who used them in their automata, described in 1206. The cam and camshaft appeared in European mechanisms from the 14th century. Waldo J Kelleigh of Electrical Apparatus Company patented the adjustable cam in the United States in 1956 for its use in mechanical engineering and weaponry. See also References External links Cam design pages Creates animated cams for specified follower motions. Kinematic Models for Design Digital Library (KMODDL) – Movies and photos of hundreds of working mechanical-systems models at Cornell University. Also includes an e-book library of classic texts on mechanical design and engineering. Introduction to Mechanisms – Cams Classification, nomenclature, motion, and design of cams; information for the course, Introduction to Mechanisms, at Carnegie Mellon University. Polynomial cam function with excel VBA file to demonstrate its motion Mechanisms (engineering)