Hello I am Jared. welcome to FunScienceDemos, and we are going to start today
with a history lesson In honor of the great pyramids. we are going to build
our own little pyramid. We are not going to use big, huge blocks of stone.
we are going to use little bricks. Keep in mind when they built the Great Pyramids
out of these huge, big blocks of stones, they did not use complicated machines
like cranes and bulldozers and dump trucks. So what did they use?
Well, we are going to take a closer look at what they used. They did not have complicated
machines to move these big blocks of stone, but they did have simple machines,
and those simple machines made their work easier, and that is the big idea.
We are going to take a closer look at the wheel and axle.
So let us start with a question. How much does this brick weigh?
To figure that out we are going to use our
spring scale. So, take a look at this. I am going to lift the brick off the table
and take a look at our spring scale - It is reading a little over one thousand grams,
or right at one thousand grams. Now those big blocks of stones in the real
great pyramids weighed a lot more. There is no way they could lift those blocks up
and carry them. So let us see what happens if we try and drag this brick.
If they could drag those big blocks of stone, and see how many grams it takes to move this
brick if I drag it.
So, now let us try dragging our brick. I get it started
moving and I can look - it is between 300 and 400 grams as I drag the brick.
So, it was easier to drag this brick than it was to lift it up and carry it, but the
blocks that made up the Great Pyramids were so big and so heavy that they were
even really difficult to drag. So the people back in history had a problem. how
do we move these massive huge big blocks of stone?
Well, through science we have discovered that you usually solve problems by
asking the right questions.
What if what if I cut these trees down and use these round logs to go under the block?
I wonder if that is going to make our work easier So we placed our block on top
of these round tree logs and now we are going to pull it and see if
our work is easier. Let us try it out. So I gently pull. believe it or not my spring
scale barely moved off of 0 gram. It hardly took any energy to move this
block on these round tree logs. But what do we do now? We are out of tree logs so
that means we would have to pick up this tree log and move it to the front, pick
up this tree log and move it to the front, pick up this tree log and keep
moving the tree logs to the front from the back.
Well, that is a lot of work too. Good news.
science is not finished yet. But what if I take this tree log and cut sections
off of the tree log? Let us see what we are left with when we do that.
So what do we have? well we have the wheel. But how do I attach this wheel to our block?
Through science we discovered that we can attach two wheels with an axle.
This piece of wood is going to be our axle, but I need some way to attach the
axle to the wheel, and to do that I am going to use styrofoam. Now cutting
styrofoam is really not a kid friendly thing to do. it is difficult and you do not
want kids using sharp knives or cutters, so we came up with a really kid
friendly way to allow kids to cut styrofoam. It may not be the prettiest but it works.
So, all I am going to do is trace my wheel on my styrofoam and use
something thin like this screwdriver and just go around the wheel, punching down
the styrofoam, taking my time, working my way around the wheel.
It is pretty easy to push through the styrofoam and once I get all the way around,
now, all I need to do is push, it comes right out.
Now, we need to take our styrofoam plug, put it into our wheel, and now I am ready
to attach my axle Just going to push my axle into the styrofoam on both sides.
It looks like I have a wheelbase that is ready to roll.
We also took a clear straw, put it through the wooden axle so our wheel and
axle can spin quite easily. Now, we have to attach this to our block and we are
going to use some tape to do that.
one piece there...one piece here.
Now, let us see how our block rolls. It may not be the prettiest thing, but I do not have
to keep moving my tree logs in front of it. It always has some wheels attached, so
now it rolls as I push it.
Think about how far we have come since the age of the pyramids, and how we use the
wheel and axle today.
Bicycles, skateboards, rollerblades, cars, airplanes, you name it, everywhere we look
we can find the wheel and axle at work, and that wheel and axle makes moving
things so much easier than if we had to drag them, or lift them, or carry them.
Simple machines at work is a beautiful thing.
It is so beautiful I might just hop on this bike and have some fun rolling around.
Science is so cool, especially when it helps make our work so much easier.
If you want to learn more about simple machines or the wheel and axle check out
our links in the video description.
Thanks for watching!