The mechanical advantage of a wheel and axle lies in the difference in radius between the inner (axle) wheel and the outer wheel. But, this mechanical advantage is only realized when the input effort and load are applied to different wheels. Applying both input effort and load to the same wheel results in a mechanical advantage of 1.

The mechanical advantage (amount of change in speed or torque) of connected gears is proportional to the number of teeth each gear has. Called gear ratio, it's the ratio of the number of teeth on the larger gear to the number of teeth on the smaller gear.  For example, a gear with 12 teeth connected to a gear with 9 teeth would have a gear ratio of 4:3.

Mass is an intrinsic property of matter and does not vary. Weight is the force exerted on the mass of an object due to gravity and a specific case of Newton's Second Law of Motion. Replace force with weight and acceleration with acceleration due to gravity on Earth (g) and the result is the formula for weight: W = mg or, substituting for g, weight equals mass multiplied by 9.8 m/s².

As an object falls, its potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. The principle of conservation of mechanical energy states that, as long as no other forces are applied, total mechanical energy (PE + KE) of the object will remain constant at all points in its descent.

The mechanical advantage (MA) of a block and tackle pulley is equal to the number of times the effort force changes direction. An easy way to count how many times the effort force changes direction is to count the number of ropes that support the resistance which, in this problem, is 8. With a MA of 8, a 225 lbs. effort force could lift 225 lbs. x 8 = 1800 lbs. resistance.