Aw. Those are cool demo mechanisms.

I hope they keep the collection. We've lost so many. The U.S. Patent Office collection of patent models was sold off. The Smithsonian's collection of clock escapement models is no longer on display. (At one time they were all wound up daily.) The Borg-Warner mechanical linkage exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry, left over from a World's Fair, is no longer on display.

People in my office were working on KMODDL back in the day before the great digital library recesssion. A much of those models are on display today in Duffield and Upson hall, many of them are really cool like a set of crazy shaped gears that turn just fine.

This collection is one of my favorite memories from undergrad. Every time I walked past I tried to think of a new way to use one of the mechanisms.