until these contingencies harden into technological necessities and become nearly unchangeable in future generations. There’s an old story that is basically true: Ordinary Roman carts were constructed to match the width of Imperial Roman war chariots because it was easier to follow the ruts in the road left by the war chariots. The chariots were sized to accommodate the width of two large war horses, which translates into our English measurement as a width of 4′ 8.5″. Roads throughout the vast Roman empire were built to this spec. When the legions of Rome marched into Britain, they constructed long distance imperial roads 4′ 8.5″ wide. When the English started building tramways, they used the same width so the same horse carriages could be used. And when they started building railways with horseless carriages, naturally the rails were 4′ 8.5″ wide. Imported laborers from the British Isles built the first railways in the Americas using the same tools and jigs they were used to. Fast forward to the US Space shuttle, which is built in parts around the country and assembled in Florida. Because the two large solid fuel rocket engines on the side of the launch Shuttle were sent by railroad from Utah, and that line transversed a tunnel not much wider than the standard track, the rockets themselves could not be much wider than 4′ 8.5.”
Lisa Virtue on 07 Mar 13A program where you can 'create and share your own interactive stories, games, music, and art'.
anonymous on 20 Apr 13The first week at uni we started to use a program called Scratch. This program can be used for teachers and students at any level. It is also has free membership. The first activity that we were required to do was to use the motion button to create simple commands to move the script (the cat). The next part of the activity was to make a sequence of commands. This included the moving the script 10 step and then having the script turn around in a clockwise direction at 15 degrees. The number of steps and the degrees can be changed to suit the way you want the script to move. The next activity was to use the simple commands and have them repeat the commands over and over until you stop the command. We also learnt how to have the script change colour while the command sequence was going. The next activity was to draw regular polygons. The first polygon that was drawn was a square. The next challenge was to create other polygons. This program is great to work with. I had some time just to play, adding backgrounds, pictures and sounds. The goal for using this scratch program at uni is to explore options for introducing digital technologies and related concepts in the primary school classroom, as the Technology curriculum is being introduced sometime this year (2013). This program would fall under the Digital Technologies strand in the Australian curriculum: Technologies. This is where students will engage in the components of digital systems: software, hardware and networks.
