Is this a novel steam engine design ?

It possibly shows what a waste of time the US patent office is and what a lack of thermodynamics knowledge can do to ones understanding of efficiency.

Mark Rand RTFM

--This looks like the kind of thing that gets the big push in Popular Mechanics, then never makes it to the mainstream. Googling on "wobble plate engine" generates 177,000 hits; I think this is one of those. The main advantage of this one seems to be that it's made using a lot of off-the-hardware store shelf parts.

The main function of this pointless contraption would seem to be to occupy it "inventor's" time and so prevent him doing anything more dangerous.

Thanks,

Wobble-plate seems to be the technical term I hadn't come across, and in this case its not a plate either, more of a bar. I assume a swash plate rotates - whereas a wobble plate doesn't - though having searched for this on the web I see a lot of people seem to think the terms are interchangeable.

As for the other responses, I saw a mention of engine efficiency and didn't bother to read the rest, presuming it was rubbish. I was only interested in the novel motion of the engine. I find that I don't even notice most of the barmy stuff these days, I must be automatically filtering it out. Life's too short.

Cheshire Steve