Technology Through The Ages: Ancient Egypt

This term we looked at how technology has evolved through time. My group decided to focus on the impact and inventions that Ancient Egypt has had on today. We had to research five technologies that where invented during that time period. We choose Medical tools, Papyrus, The Civil Calendar and scissor. After that we had to choose three of them and write a essay on them.

My essay.

In Ancient Egypt there were many important inventions that were created. Some of these inventions are papyrus later known as paper, scissors and the calendar. These inventions are still commonly seen and used today.

The Ancient Egyptians also created the first civil calendar. The Civil calendar is a very important invention, because keeping track of time was essential to their civilization since everything relied on the flooding of the Nile. The civil calendar allowed them to keep track of when the Nile would flood and their yearly celebrations. Originally like many other cultures they solely used a lunar calendar to keep track of time, but at some point they changed to the first solar calendar. The solar calendar had twelve months with three ten day weeks with an extra five days of celebration to make up the rest of the year. It was also the one of the first calendar to have four seasons instead of three. The civil calendar is an important invention for the Ancient Egyptians that is still used today.

One important invention in Ancient Egypt was the invention of papyrus later known as paper. Papyrus is the first form of paper in history. The creation of papyrus is important because you could write instead of having to carve into rock all day. Papyrus is made with the papyrus reed that commonly grows in the mashs around the Nile. The longest papyrus scroll is around 40 meters. Papyrus is an important invention because it allows someone to easily record information.

In 1500 BC the first scissors were created. Scissors were used in fashion to cut hair. Scissors were made of one solid piece of bronze. They were two blades connected by a metal strip. The metal strip kept them apart until they were sweased together. In 100 AD the Romans took the basic idea and created the sort of scissors we still use today. These days scissors are used for a lot more than just cutting hair.  

Ancient Egypt is an era where a lot of important inventions were invented. Some of these are papyrus, scissors and calendar. These inventions are still commonly used today.

Wind Racers

Introduction
This week we are making wind racers or land yachts in groups. I am in a group with Wajihah and Tyra. We will be researching, designing and creating a sail for our wind racers. After we have completed that we will test how well our design works with a leaf blower, then make some adjustments to make it better. Eventually when the whole class is ready we will race them against each other.

Day 1
Today we are researching different types of sails that we think can work. We got suck between a pirate ship sail or a yacht. We are going to test the yacht sail first, then we will test the pirate ship sail next. We have started to make the yacht sail with newspaper.

Day 2
Today we were given our wind racers and the pole we are using to hole our sails. Some groups are using a metal rod from a retort stand, but most are going with bamboo. We are making pirate sails and putting the yacht sail idea aside for the moment. We are working on the structural support of the sail.

Day 3
Today we finished making the structural support for the sail. We used popsicle sticks, bamboo skewers and electrical tape. After that we attached the sail to the support. We also started making another sail by  attaching another mast to the wind racer with hot glue.

Day 4
Today we had about half an hour to make last minute adjustments. We added two new triangle sails to the back of the masts. Then we got to test them for the first time with the leaf blower. The first thing I noticed was unlike most of the other sails we had a big gap between the bottom of the sail and the top of our wind racer meaning that it would move for a long time as we lifted the leaf blower up to hit the sails.

Day 5
Today we are making some adjustments to make our sails better. We added small sails to where there is a gap between the bottom of the sail and the top of our wind racer. In the test our sails went the furthest distance out of the whole class. We retested our sails with the leaf blower. We decided to remove one of our main sails. Tomorrow will be the final race to see who has the best sail.

Day 6
Today was the final race. The whole class went outside to test our wind races. While the rest of the classes modifications helped them improve their distance, ours didn't. The modifications that we made halved the distance our wind races were able to go. After every group had gone multiple times we went back inside to deconstruct our sails and selvage what equipment we could. We took so long that another group had to help deconstruct.

Conclusion
If we were able to do this again we would not have made the last adjustments that we made to the second big sail, but I would defiantly do this again if I had the chance.