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TopClicks
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Curiosities, Wonders & Interesting Facts
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Inventors and Inventing
BusinessWeek Online - 100 Years of Innovation - What would you say were the best inventions in the last 100 years? The zipper? The photocopier? The Internet and personal computers? Beanie Babies? This resource looks at the past century and highlights the inventions and technological innovations that have impacted our lives: both for the better and for the worse.
Cog, the Robot - Back in 1921, playwright Karel Capek coined the word "robot," and since then, books, movies, and television programs have all speculated about the form these mechanical creatures will take. Now a group of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Artificial Intelligence Lab are actually attempting this feat. Artificial intelligence is the process in which a computer takes in information and uses it to create new knowledge--a simulation of human thinking. Cog the Robot is a collection of sensors and motors that attempt to duplicate the sensory and manipulative functions of the human body. Coupled with artificial intelligence programming, Cog may eventually succeed in bringing science fiction's fantasies to reality. Move over Data, here comes Cog!
Cool Robot of the Week - NASA cares about robots enough to honor the "Cool Robot of the Week." Check past awardees for information on remotely powered environmental research aircraft, news on the winners of the annual RoboCup, and a photo of how MIT students turned a campus dome into a replica of R2D2, among many others!
Detroit Public Library - African-American Inventors - Explore this enormous list of African American inventors and their patented inventions. These inventions include a pencil sharpener, refrigeration equipment, elevator machinery, and railroad telegraphy discoveries. Sarah E. Goode was the first African American woman to obtain a U.S. patent, for a particular type of "cabinet bed."
How We Made the First Flight - This is Orville Wright's firsthand account of how he and his brother, Wilbur, built and flew the first successful airplane. It is an interesting description of events and an important historical document. This is a great resource for any report on the topic of the Wright brothers, famous inventors, or aviation history.
Inventions! @ Nationalgeographic.com - You'll need Shockwave to play these inventing games, but if you don't have it, you can use the neat selection of links to other pages on inventions around the Web. There are five games; one is guessing the purpose of a wacky patent drawing. Hmmm, is it an automatic baby-patting machine or a mitten stretcher? If you guess right enough times, you'll get a token. Get five tokens, and you can operate the wackiest machine of them all back at the Lab: the Action Contraption!
Leonardo Home Page - If you think this site is about the hero of Titanic, sorry. This Leonardo is famous for painting the Mona Lisa. But did you know Leonardo da Vinci also designed a helicopter, a hang glider, a parachute, and several other contraptions that didn't actually get built until hundreds of years later? Which ones can you recognize from their original drawings? This special exhibit comes from Boston's Museum of Science.
Official Rube Goldberg Web Site - Visit the gallery to see wacky inventions for a new type of pencil sharpener, a safer (?) way to walk on icy sidewalks, and a new way to remember to mail a letter. You can also find out about the various Rube Goldberg invention contests as well as read Goldberg's life story.
One Digital Day - Created by Photojournalist Rick Smolan - In what ways has our world been transformed by the invention of the computer chip? Photojournalist Rick Smolan decided to find out. Famous for such projects as A Day in the Life of America, Smolan sent photographers off to the far reaches of the world to capture one digital day. This Web site shows many of the results, which include helping kids who can't go out in the daytime, working to save endangered species, and body sensor research to help bicycle racers go faster. You can also see how a silicon chip is made at this most interesting site.
Pencil Inventions - Look at your pencil. How would you improve it? Make it longer, shorter, fatter, or thinner? Maybe put a light on it, or a pretzel on it, or maybe even add a calculator? Getting your brain going on a problem like this is the first step towards being a real inventor. See what this class of kids came up with to improve their pencils.
Popular Mechanics Time Machine - Popular Mechanics is the magazine for anyone interested in machines. They have built an Internet time machine to help you see how machines have improved over the last 70 or so years. See high-flying French balloons from the early 1900s and crazy car designs from 1960. It's a walk through history, and you won't even have to leave the chair in front of your computer! Your time machine comes with a lot of shiny buttons, and there's even an owner's manual. Let's see, what happens if we press this button right here?
Technology in 1900 - You know how much technology affects your life now, what with telephones, television, computers, and other things you take for granted. What about kids living 100 years ago? What was considered high tech back then? According to this site, kids would have been drooling to get their hands on a phonograph record! And electricity really hadn't even made its way to many places yet. What predictions for the future did people make? How many of them have come true? Why did phone companies stop using boys as operators and start hiring girls instead? The answer may surprise you.
The History and Making of the Atomic Bomb - Is the atomic bomb an instrument of destruction or a maintainer of world peace? Was its creation a giant achievement for the scientific minds of the day or a huge step backwards for humanity? This site examines the creation of the atomic bomb, its scientific principles, and its subsequent testing and use during World War II. This site was created by students for the ThinkQuest competition.
The World of Benjamin Franklin - Hey! Who's that guy on the $100 bill, the hippie with the long hair? It's Ben Franklin: famous American scientist, statesman, and inventor. You remember him: he's the guy who supposedly flew the kite in the thunderstorm to learn about electricity. ( Net-mom says don't try that--it's extremely dangerous.) Here are some classroom activities to help you learn more about some of the things that interested Franklin. He was interested in lots of things, too. For example, he was one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. And you know where it was signed, right? At the bottom!
Walt Disney - His Life and Works - This fan page offers an extensive time line of Walt Disney's life and films. Did you know Disney produced many films for the U.S. Army (Dental Health was one) and private industry (Prevention and Control of Distortion in Arc Welding for the Lincoln Electrical Company)? That's only one of the interesting facts you'll learn about the man who discovered Mickey Mouse and his Toontown buddies.
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