Description

Orange, white, and blacn motorized model of the gyroscope from the Mark 15 gunsight.

During WWII, Allied gunners had trouble keeping up with fighter planes used by Japanese forces. Working with colleagues at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, Charles Stark Draper developed a gyroscopically controlled gunsight that calculated where a bullet should be fired in order to hit its target. To demonstrate its function, the Instrumentation Lab built this model. Though it was a replica of the gyroscope of a WWII gunsight, Draper would later use it to demonstrate inertial navigation.