Decorating the Flashlight – Technology

After I built my flashlight because at that point all it looked like was a white tube (which it was). Now, I don’t have a lot of artistic skill, so I didn’t expect much of it. I decided to color it orange and red because I like those colors. At first I wanted to make it look like fire, but decided against it because I didn’t think that I could make it look good. I just colored one cap red and the other orange and colored half of the elbow red and the other half orange. Then I added a few plastic jewels on it and added a flower design. In my point of view, I still think it looks ok, but I think I will just leave it for now.

 

Building the Flashlight- Technology

In the previous post I talked about making the plans for the flashlight. This will be about building the flashlight. After I finished drawing out the plan I had to get the fittings. Once I knew they were the right fittings, I needed to get all te pieces. I had two positive wires and one negative. I soldered these in the right order and left these in the bag. Then, I had to drill holes to fit the switch (I put it at the top) and the light (which I put in the front, obviously). Then, I had to struggle to fit the light in the hole and fit the switch and closed it all up. Then, I put a switch cover on it and glued it down. The next part would be to decorate…

Making plans – Technology

In technology we have to make plans before we build things. This past week we have been making flashlights. We drew it out on a grid paper where every square was half an inch. We had to use rulers to draw out the PVC pipes and the fittings. This was especially hard because the 45 degree elbow was extremely hard to measure.  Once I measured that I had to measure all the spaces and what part of the cap would go into the fitting. After that I had to draw out where the switch, light, and battery would go. Then, I had to measure the length of the wire. Because it was drawn to scale, this was one of the easier parts. After I finished drawing the plans I had to build it. But that will be in another post.

Technology – Soldering

In technology we made solder people. To make these, we bent wire into a stick figure shape with a head, body and legs. It would have been much harder to bend arms into it so instead, we soldered arms on. We bent the solder people into the shape we wanted then, we bent the arms into the shape we wanted. After that we clipped the two pieces on to the third hands (things to help old the things you are soldering). We then heated up the object and soldered it together. I have made a stand for mine that resembles a snowboard and I think overall it tuned out pretty well.

Technology – Driverless Cars

In class we talked about driverless cars and how they work. They have  sensors on all sides that tell which way to turn or merge very fast. They stil have wheels in case something backfires and the human in the car can take over. There is one problem though. If there was a situation where you either had to get into an accident or hit the pedestrians on the side walk you would probably be able to make a decision really quick. You have feelings and selflessness. But the car, would most likely not be able to make that decision. It would fo the thing that would seem most logical at the time. This is another reason there is always going to need a function for the driver to take over. Overall driverless cars could be a great addition to the roads and could help people in many ways.