Human Ingenuity

We got a 54 page guide about this personal project. The definition on Human Ingenuity they gave was:

"Human Ingenuity is about the impact of the human mind on our world.
We work, play, create relationships, cause problems and then think of the ways to solve them again. We shape the world to the way we want it and reflect upon the consequences of our actions.
It's not only about us as individuals, but also the impact of our collective actions. HI can both small and simple or large and complex. HI can both good for us and bad for us.

This is why the two key questions for Human Ingenuity are:
Why and how do we create?
What are the consequences?"

The whole definition and more about Human Ingenuity you can read in the Appendices.

So if we would relate this definition to my project you can see clear resembalance. Clocks and is a very big and brought topic to talk about, so there are many different way on how we can go about answering these questions. But if we first take a look at the (opsomming) they gave us in the difinition about what HI effects how we:
Work
Play
Create Relationships
Cause Problem
Think of Ways to Solve them Again.

And obviously the invention of time has changed this definity, but what's so hard about talking how the Mechanical Clock has changed the way we live is that clocks did exsist

Different people have different opinions on how the clock has effected these points, but because I can't go around to every single person on the world and ask their opinion I narrowed it down to just my opinion, it still is my project.

How we live changed when we invented the Mechanical clock. The idea of the Mechanical Clock was used in the 1300s, but was very inaccurate. The pendulum was invented in 1581, and used in clocks a century later. So if you do the math,
1581 + 100 =  1681.
2012 - 1681 = 331
So only around 331 years ago a proper working, accurate mechanical clock was used. When this era was present, there were huge differences in the way we worked, played, create, cause and solve things. This was the first time reading object that was not only accurate, but also didn't need adjustments every hour. Candles finishes, and could be blown out. Water timers needed fresh water, and were very hard to read. The mechanical clocks were easy to read, and only needed someone to adjust the weights every so often. People worked and work better when the clock was invented. We show up on time, and leave when the clock stikes 6. We could/can record how much time we put into something, and make appointments without people showing up hours too late or too early, although 300 years ago they probably didn't have appointments and offices yet.

Supervisors announced

Not too long ago they (explain) announced our supervisors for our PPs. I got Ms. Trumic, she's an Physics teacher at my school. I am really happy I have a physics teacher because my project is physics and technology. I never had a class from Ms. Trumic, I never even met her. But I emailed her to make an appointment, and she will be available next Thursday the 28th.

Technopolis Brussels

With school I went on school camp to Brussels this year. It was from (date) to (date). We visited the trenches and some other WWI related things. On the last day right before we would go home we went to a museum called Technopolis. We had to look throught the museum and later do a few assignments on what we saw for our Sciences. But then I came accross one exsibition and it had a model of how the clock works. I got all excited and started taking lots of pictures, but then after actually reading what the model does I realised that I already knew everything what was happining. They just explained and showed how one teeth turns 60 times quicker that the other. Which if you read my previous post I already knew and explained. But if you didn't really understood how my theory (and now fact) worked you can read what they said in the museum and hopefully you'll understand now.

(Find and place the photos of Technopolid here)

Personal Project Proposal

I had to hand in my PP Proposal form, this form is also known as Appendix 4. Most of it is straight forward. All the proposals of all Yr10 students will be printed out and hung up anonymously in the staff room.
The asigned supervisors will choose a project (or projects) that interests them, so the PE teachers likely will choose a project related to PE, art teachers will (likely) choose an art project, and spanish teachers will choose someone who wants to do their whole project in Spanish.

My project is partially Physics, partially Technology. How this clock works and how the weights are all part of Physics. The actual making of the clock itself is more Technology.

I will now be assigned a Supervisor in the coming weeks, who will guide me throught this PP, and if I ever have any questions I have to go to her. We will have regular meeting were she will check if I am on track and doing the right things.

Basics of how a clock works

Before I confirmed that I would make a clock, I obviously researched a bit about if it is really achievable. I looked through some book in our school library. I found one book which names all the vocabulary of all the pieces of a clock, which I thought would be very usefull when I would go buy the pieces. Only later I came with the idea of making all the pieces from wood. So I photocopied it and put it here:

There are another book which explains a bit confusinly how the basics of a clock work. But I figured it out mainly by common-sense.

You have two types of Mechanical Clocks, one that works on weight, one that works on springs. If you have a clock that works on springs it means that you tighten the spring which holds potential energy and pushes a wheel round. If it works on weigth it also hold potential energy, because the gravity will pull the weight down, and the weight are attached to a wheel, so the weights will turn around the wheels.

How the wheels work is easy: when one wheel starts turning, the other once will aswell and eventually it will get the teeth of the clock to work. The next bit is a bit hard to explain just by words, but I'll do my best. One wheel is directly attached to the minute teeth, but one wheel (a bigger one) is touching it. because the wheel is bigger, the smaller one has to turn more times for the bigger one to go around once, in other words the big one will go slower. Then above the big wheel is another wheel. These are attached to eachother, not just touching. So whenever the big one goes around once, so will the other one. The 'other' one is smaller, and is touching another bigger wheel. So the small one will go really slowely, but it has to turn several times before the big one has turned once. Therefore the big one goes even more slowely. Mathmatically calculated the made sure that the speed of this one is acsactly 60 times slower that the minute teeth, which makes the hour teeth. Are you with me?

Then you have another problem. If the weigths or the spring makes one of the wheels go around, why doesn't it very quickly make all the wheels go around really fast and then stop? This is solved by the pendulum.

In the book it also explains how an electronic clock works, but that doesn't really help me in my project, and in the back it also explains a bit about the history of the clock. But this was only a small paragraph, so I just quoted it:

"Clocks

A rack-and-pinion gear was used in a water clock build by the Greek inventor Ctesibius in about 250BC. The water clock was an ancient device in which water dropped at a constant rate into a containter, the level of the water indicating the time. Ctesibius improved it by having a float raise a rack that turned a pinion connected to a pointer on a drum. The pointer turned to indicate the time in the same ways as the hour hand of a mechanical clock.
The oldest surviving mechanical clocks date from the late 1300s. Gears transmitted the constant movement of a regulator to the hands or to a bell. A good regulator appeared only with the discovery of the pendulum in 1581 by the great Italian scientist Galileo, who timed a swinging chandelier with his pulse and realized that chandelier with his pulse and realized that the time taken for each swing was always constant. Even so, it took nearly a century for the first pendulum clocks to appear."