A little science and history crossover for you today! My kids have been getting interested in the concept of simple machines, so in addition to checking out some great books, we have also been watching a variety of YouTube videos. That led us down a bit of a rabbit hole into the idea of work.
Basic questions we’ve been exploring:
- What is work?
- How do people manipulate their environment to make work easier?
Among our favorite videos is Depak Pathania’s “Walking Robot” — a robot project that is actually a physics project. Here we see a great example of human ingenuity making work easier. Pathania has designed his carefully balanced robot so that it is propelled by gravity and its own weight.
Watching this little robot teeter along struck me as wonderfully reminiscent of a National Geographic documentary I had seen years ago about how the people of Easter Island used rudimentary tools and pure human genius to transport the massive stone carvings that would Luckily for you, some highlights from that documentary are now on YouTube. Isn’t it a great time to be alive?
And speaking of simple machines, don’t reinvent the wheel with your homeschool curriculum. Get the self-taught Ron Paul Curriculum today and start loving homeschooling again!