Yesterday we did an activity that included working with nails, tools, and wood. There was a lot of screws that I used that were easier than others. I found that the long sharper screws worked better. I think that they worked better because they were sharper so it was easier to stab into the wood. For some of the harder screws, including the flat heads, I had to use an awl. An awl is something that you stab into the wood so it makes it easier to get started on screwing something in. With the flatheads, there was no sharpness in the bottom so it was very hard to get it to go into the wood. After using the wood on the table for a while, I figured out that if I put the wood in the vice it would be more convienent. It made it easier for me to get the nail in because there was more support holding the wood. Also, sometimes it took a little more time to get started because some of the screw drivers didn’t with the nails. I had to math them up so I was able to screw it. The top of the nail matched with the bottom of the screwdriver so I had to test put a few of them to finally find the perfect match. In conclusion, this activity was fun and interesting to do because I really had to focus on which screwdriver matched the nail and it took the effort to get the nail into the wood.

Some questions that I had during this activity were…

• How can I get the flatheads into the wood without using an awl?
• If I did this in a real life situation (building a machine) would it be this hard?