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Discover

The archive is more than just a collection of documents, sketches, patents and photographs and there are lots of different ways to discover more about Lanchester’s genius.

Dive into the interactive Timeline, or play a series of Games that bring his inventions to life, before downloading the AR and VR apps to experience the archive in a totally immersive way. Finally, you can explore the complete A-Z of Lanchester’s life and work.

Timeline

Step back in time to find out more about the most significant developments that shaped Fred’s extraordinary lifetime. Choose to highlight family events like his early years and marriage, or focus on his business and inventions, including his first patent in 1888. Finally, you can access some of the huge range of publications that Fred authored.

Explore

Games

Green

Auto Engineer

Build your own car in Fred’s workshop and test out different engines, suspension and components to complete the challenges – from armoured cars to Brooklands racers!

Play Now

Auto Engineer

Plane

Flight

Select the best wings, propellers airframe and components for your plane and then pilot it through the rings to reach the finish – see Fred’s innovations come to life in his workshop

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Flight

Plane

Aerodone

Welcome to the drawing board. Try and figure how different wing types change a plane’s flight path – Fred's gliders took to the air in 1894 and you can fly them too

Play

Aerodone

Plane

Gears

Use different gears and ratios to get the right amount of power to all the components in the gear box – starts off simple, but can you get that worm gear working?

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Gears

Lanchester Car

Lanchester's Interactive Games

Our games are available for free on both Android and iOS devices or you can play right here in your browser.

Take up Lanchester’s challenges and have fun at the same time with our serious games. Explore Fred’s ingenious suspension, wheels and more in the automotive engineering challenge. Jump into his futuristic flying machines designed over 100 years ago and fly around his workshop. Test Fred’s theories from the earliest days of aeronautics in the aerodone game and finally dive into the fiendish gears games to power his mad machines.

Search Google Play or the App Store for “Lanchester’s Interactive Games”, or click on the app download links below.

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Lanchester Car

Augmented & Virtual Reality App

Let Lanchester’s inventions and achievements spring to life with our augmented reality. Download the free app and the AR triggers to view how the collection comes alive.

App Icon App Icon

AR Image Downloads

There are 12 unique AR targets for you to try. AR works by showing your device’s camera to a specific picture and then the virtual content comes to life with animations, video and fantastic facts!

  1. Download the free AR app and install on your device
  2. Pick some of the AR images available. Download the images and bring them up full size on a screen (e.g. laptop or desktop monitor), or print them out on A4 paper
  3. Start up the app, after it finishes loading you should see a camera feed on your device
  4. Point your device’s camera at the image you’ve got on your screen or print-out. Try to make sure the image is fairly close, flat and parallel to the camera to get the best view.
  5. See the AR content come to life!
Lanchester VR

Lanchester VR

Take your experience to another level with the Oculus Go VR headset and the Lanchester VR app.

Download the app and enter Fred’s workshop to play games, experience the sights and sounds of his inventions coming to live and have a guided tour of his amazing inovations.

Head to the Oculus store to download the free app now:

Oculus Experiences

The Complete A - Z

Discover the entire history of Lanchester's life and work
from A to Z...

Find out more