The first invention I learned about was the Combine Harvester. John Hascall met Hiram Moore in Michigan, where Moore built his Combine to solve Hascall’s harvesting problems. The combine can harvest 30 acers a day at an 80% reduction in the cost of thrashing. Moore was not successful in selling the combine, but his combine helped others to be successful. The combine lead to a drastic drop of food prices and economic expansion.
The second invention I learned about this week was the solar compass. William Austin Burt devised the solar compass to remove interference effects from local magnetic fields and develop accurate readings. The compass was a complex device that did not suffer for magnetic field interference. Michigan became a leading producer of iron ore as a result of Burt’s invention.
The third invention I learned about was the propeller. Francis Pettit Smith invented a successful screw propeller in 1835. The new propeller was lighter, increased fuel efficiencies, made it easier to steer a boat, and was cheaper to install. Smith advertised his propeller to the British Navy though a series of trails he conducted. Steam ship technology improved throughout the years making tickets cheaper and increasing immigration. The propeller design improved a lot.
The last invention I learned about was the Mechanical Computer. Babbage envisioned a programable, mechanical computer that could print tabular data accurately without error. The engine would use punched cards for programing and print out results in graphs or table form. Babbage never built the machine but it has become a topic of interest in retrospect. IBM entered the computing market, and transformed it.
The most interesting thing I learned about this week was how Babbage invented a second computer. The computer had 8,000 parts but only had a third as many as the first one had. I found this interesting because 8,000 parts are a lot but the first computer had 24,000 parts which is a lot more parts. Babbage never built his second computer because he could not get the help from the government. The second computer was much bigger and had a better system because they built the second one in 1985 when IBM entered the computing market.
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