Muggle Inventions : Inventions A-B

Airbags

An airbag is a flexible membrane which inflates with air or gas. They are used for cushioning, and inflate rapidly after a collision.

The airbag was invented in 1952 by John W. Hetrick, who created it to help his own family, using knowledge from his naval engineering days. However, it was not Hetrick who brought the airbags to the mainstream market.

This was done by Allen Breed, who developed a further component for use in cars, and he then patented his idea, and marketed it to Chrysler in 1967. During this time, people tended not to use seatbelts, and so something that helped with the safety of a car was a welcome invention.

However, there were several problems with the first round of airbags used in a test fleet of Ford cars. They were released in 1973, with optional dual airbags. During this time, seven people died in car accidents in these cars, and one of those deaths is thought to have been caused by the airbag.

Later on in 1980, airbags were reintroduced in Germany by Mercedes Benz, and throughout the eighties, airbags become more and more commonplace. In 1984, the US government required that all cars being produced after April 1 1989 had to have drivers side air bags.

In 2006, Honda introduced the first motorcycle airbag.

Bicycle

A bicycle (or bike) is a manual pedal-powered vehicle, with two wheels on a frame. They were first introduced in 19th century Europe, and soon became used all over the world.

Presently, there are over 1,000,000,000 bikes in the world.

There is not one inventor of the bicycle, several contributed to its creation. The predecessors of the bike were known as velocipedes, such as the dandy horse of the French Comte de Sivrac, which dates back to 1790, and is considered the earliest bike.

Another early bicycle came to be known as the ‘boneshaker’, and the pedals were placed on an enlarged front wheel. This bicycle was patented in 1866.

In the 1870’s, James Starley reinvented the boneshaker, by placing the seat squarely over the pedals, and enlarged the front wheel, so the bike would go faster. This then became known as the Penny Farthing, as the wheels were likened in size difference to the difference in size of the two coins.

This type of bicycle was difficult to ride, and due to its height often resulted in falls.

Moving on a century, by the late 1980’s mountain bikes had become popular, and bikes now had several gears and speeds.

Source: www.wikipedia.org

Air ships

It is an aircraft that can be steered and propelled through the air.

In the early 1940's Hydrogen was it's primary lifting gas. Until, the 1950's , all airships except the ones in the US continued to use Hydrogen. They found it less cheaper than Helium, but it offered greater lift.

But, mixed with air, Hydrogen is flammable and the US continued not to use Helium because it was considered a strategic material. The issue therefore became one of safety versus cost. American airships have been filled with helium since the 1920s and modern passenger-carrying airships are often, by law, prohibited from being filled with hydrogen.





Braille

The braille system was based on a method of communication originally developed by Charles Barbier in response to Napoleon's demand for a code that soldiers could use to communicate silently and without light at night called night writing. But, it failed.

Louis Braille identified the major failing of the code, which was that the human finger could not encompass the whole symbol without moving, and so could not move rapidly from one symbol to another.

His modification was to use a 6 dot cell — the braille system — which revolutionized written communication for the blind. It was invented by him in 1821






Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airships

AIBO

Aibo known as Artificial Intelligence roboot is one of many robotic pets since their introduction in 1999/ They are able to walk, see it's invironment due to cameras programmed inside it and recognize certain commands.

Artist Hajime Sorayama created the initial design for the AIBo before he turned it into Sony manufactuers.

Aibo is said to be supported until 2013.

This robotic pet runs on a pink memory stick and allows AIBO to be raised from a puppy to an adult and while it matures it starts to learn voice commands. This is the main reason why many AIBO owners enjoy teaching their robotic pets; they get to watch them learn and grow.

Basketball

This is a sport where two teams of five players try to score points on a different team of five players by dunking a ball into a hoop (basket) under organized rules.

It was invented in 1891 and originated in the YMCA where early leagues were formed into college. But, basketball soon became a professional sport and is one of the few women's sports as well. It was originally an American sport, but it quickly spread internationally where most teams and its players wee found.

Points are score by getting the ball through the basket from above; the team with the most points wins. The ball must be dribbled through out the game and you pass it between teammates. Any physical contact is called a foul for its not allowed and there are certin restrictions on how the ball is handled, which is called violation

There are also certain postions in basketball:
Point Guard - It controlls teams offense by getting the ball to the right person in time
Shooting Guard: Creats a high volume of shots on offeense
Small Forward:Responsible for scoring points; this player plays more actively
Power Forward: Plays offensively mostly with his back towards the basket.
Center: Uses size to score or protect the basket.

There are also different versions of basketball like street ball, which is mostly played in inner city, particularly played by African Americans. Then there's also One on One where only two players play against eachother.

Sources------> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Board Game

A board game is any game played on a board (that is, a premarked surface) with counters or pieces that are placed on, removed from, or moved across the board. Simple board games are often seen as ideal "family entertainment" as they can provide entertainment for all ages. Senet is the oldest board game known to have existed, having been pictured ina fresco found in Merknera's tomb (3300-2700 BC). One way of defining board games are between those based upon luck and strategy. Some games, such as chess, have no luck involved. Children's games tend to be very luck based, with games such as Sorry!, Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders having virtually no decisions to be made. Most board games have both luck and strategy.

Terms
* gameboard— the surface on which one plays a board game; the namesake of the board game, gameboards are a necessary and sufficient condition of the genre
* Game Piece — a player's representative on the game board. Each player may control one or more game pieces. In some games that involve commanding multiple game pieces, such as chess, certain pieces have unique designations and capabilities within the game; in others, such as Go, all pieces controlled by a player have the same capabilities.
* Jump — to bypass one or more game pieces or spaces. Depending on the context, jumping may also involve capturing or conquering an opponent's game piece.
* Space (or square) — a physical unit of progress on a gameboard delimited by a distinct border




Baseball

The game was developed in the United States from early bat-and-ball games played in Britain, and it has become the national sport of the United States. It is a Bat-and-ball game in which a pitcher throws (pitches) a hard, fist-sized ball past the hitting area of a batter. The batter attempts to hit the baseball with a smooth bat made of wood or metal. A team scores only when batting, by advancing counter-clockwise past a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. These bases are First Base, Second Base, Third Base and Home Palte. If a person misses the ball three times, it is called a strike, and that person cannot bat until it is their turn in the rotation again.

An inning consists of each team having one turn in the field and one turn to hit, with the visiting team batting before the home team. A standard game lasts nine innings, but goes into overtime, if the score is tied at the end of the ninth.

Most teams consist of
* 5 Starting Pitchers
* 7 Relievers
* 2 Catchers (starter and sub)
* 1 1st baseman
* 1 2nd baseman
* 1 3rd baseman
* 1 shortstop
* 1 left fielder
* 1 right fielder
* 1 center fielder
* 4 bench payers (subs, pinch hitters, pinch runners, usually 2 extra infielders and 2 extra outfielders)



Sources:
www.wikipedia.org

Muggle Inventions

Atomic Bomb

OK so not the nicest muggle invention to do this essay on, but Atomic bombs are a big part of our history.

Purified Uranium-235 was calculated by Albert Einstein in 1939 as the makings of Atomic Bombs.
He wrote to the President at the time, Franklin.D Roosevelt to use this discovey to combat the U.S Army at the start of World war II.
To make the bombs, two types of chemicals have to be used to make the metals explosive and magnetic enough to explode across a large area.
At Oak Ridge, Tennessee a large Labortatory was built just for the development of this.
The only problem at the time, was that the Uranium-235 needed was extremely hard to extract and the other Uranium easier to extract was useless to use in this bomb.
The other U-235 had an isotope, both with the same chemical make up, but U-235 was the one that would make the bomb explosive. The other, was also useless like the Uranium case.
The Uranium-235 sustained the chain reaction in the bomb and the U-235 was non-fissable.
Harold.C Urrey and other scientists after six years finally had the making of an atomic bomb.
An atomic bomb has explosive chemicals which cause a chain reaction inside the bomb, forming a large electric-magnetic pulse or named ‘Mushroom cloud’.
The bombs other use is to scramble electronic devices used by the enemy communications. It is part of the computerized features which can be triggered by the army with a computer.

Major Atomic Bomb attacks

The most noted bomb attack was the Hiroshama atomic bomb in World war II by the Americans in Japan. Sixty six thousand people were killed instantly as the radioactive electric bomb waves covered the city.

Source:
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa050300a.htm


Boomerang

I chose this muggle invention because it is very much a part of Australian culture

The boomerang is an Aboriginal hunting weapon carved in the shape of a wide V in wood.
Used by the Australian Aboriginal it is thrown very sharply and can kill or injure the aimed target, usually kangaroos or any other native Australian animal that the Aborigines eat.
Boomerang means ‘Backfire’ which means when it is thrown it will return back in the general direction it was thrown in.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang

Aqualung

Aqualungs are a Scuba diving equipment created by Emile Gagna and Jacques Cousteu.
They’re consisted of a high pressure diving cylinder and a diving regulator that supplies the diver with breathing gas at ambient pressure, via a demand valve

I think that mixing guelracho into the breathing gas would help a lot the diver by turning the "underwater walk" more easy and confortable. Small portions of gulelracho in the gas would not completly transform the diver it'd only relax his lungs for a better and easier breathing.

Braille

The braille system was based on a method of communication originally developed by Charles Barbier in response to Napoleon's demand for a code that soldiers could use to communicate silently and without light at night called night writing. Barbier's system was too complex for soldiers to learn, and was rejected by the military; in 1821 he visited the National Institute for the Blind in Paris, France, where he met Louis Braille. Louis identified the major failing of the code, which was that the human finger could not encompass the whole symbol without moving, and so could not move rapidly from one symbol to another. His modification was to use a 6 dot cell — the braille system — which revolutionized written communication for the blind.
The braille system, devised in 1821 by Louis Braille, is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write. Each braille character or "cell" is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each. A dot may be raised at any of the six positions to form sixty-four combinations, counting the space in which no dots are raised.
Braille can be seen as the world's first binary encoding scheme for representing the characters of a writing system


The item which I think'd help (and a lot) the Braille system is a quick notes quill. With them blind people'd be able to write what they want in a most faster and easier way. Also braille books are very rare, expensive and takes a lot of work to make one. A quick quill'd make this process faster and cheaper. Can you imagine with this blind people would be able to be reporters and make interviews!
Of course the quick quill'd have to adapted to braille and each quill tested to see if what the speaker says is what's being written! We don't want Rita Skeeter's all over the world!


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Sources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua-lung
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille

ALUMINIUM

Aluminium is a metal element that is lightweight, and has a dull shiny colour, due to the oxidation on its surface, though it will take a fresh bright shiny colour if the Aluminium oxide is physically scrubbed off.

Aluminium as a pure metal, is non-toxic, non-magnetic, conducts electricity and heat, and does not produce a spark.

Aluminium has been used for centuries, and the first recorded use was when the Greeks and Romans used the aluminium salts for aiding the dying process and for dressing wounds. In the second world war, USA produced 16 000 warplanes in four years because of its new efficient hydroelectric power plant that could proveide the electricity for the extraction of aluminium, beating Germany in its record of being the world's main Aluminium provider.

Aluminium must be taken from its ore, bauxite, by electrolysis. Magic would help speed up and economise this process by creating a spell that would provide free electrons to combine with the Aluminium ions to create pure aluminium. The oxygen ions would release electrons and combine to produce pure oxygen instead of reacting with a carbon electrode to produce harmful carbon dioxide.

Nowadays, Aluminium is used in many things such as aeroplanes, kitchen foil, cooking utensils, building materials, etc.

THE BOOMERANG

Nobody is sure when the boomerang was actually first used or invented. It is a popular knowledge that Australia is the country of boomerangs because the Australian Aborigines have used boomerangs and hunting sticks for hunting for hundreds of years. However, you should not mistake a boomerang (which means “returning”) with a Kylie, a hunting stick, because a Kylie travels in a straight line, whereas a Boomerang turns and is supposed to come back to you.

Boomerangs were also used for religious festivals and for recreation.

Magic would be useful in cheating in a Boomerang Throwing World Cup Competition (there really is a world cup, where Germany and USA are the main champions of Boomerangs). A simple Accio coupled with a banishing charm could win the competition by a landslide!

There are several types of boomerang throwing competitions, such as Maximum Time Aloft (MTA), Trick Catch (where you are marked on the difficulty of the catch), Accuracy 50/100 (accuracy of where the boomerangs land out of five or ten throws, out of a max of 50 or 100 points), Fast catch (shortest time in the air) and Endurance (number of throws and catches in five minutes).

All in all, Boomerangs are fun things that don’t always work for most of us, but can be used by pros to do what they want…


Source: Wikipedia

Aibo-

The Aibo(Artificial Intelligence Robot) dog was created back in 1999 as to be a pet for those who were allergic to real dogs. This device-robotic dog actually helped those who were unable to look after a real pet. At first it was just a prototype but eventually it became an actual robot for the public market.
Sony created this robotic dog and even gave it special features not having been seen before. Aibo-as the company called it- would be able to follow commands, chase it's ball. It can walk, bark, and even grow in mentality.
It's equipped with a memory chip that mimicks the growth of a real dog.
Also, the dog can mimick free will and emotions. It has a built in voice recognition sensor that can determine who its owner is. It can learn up to fifty words and sentences and even in different languages.

However in 2006 this robot dog was discontinued for a time. Though Sony has agreed to continue creating memory chips and accessories for aibo until the year 2013. The future after that is unknown.

Magic that could work on it would be things like wit sharpening spells, but also the Imperio would work quite well-even though it is an unforgivable one.
Magic enchantments that would speed it up, make it more human thinking would prove useful.


Bandaid-

The bandaid was created by a man named Earle Dickson back in 1912. He made it because his wife who was always cooking, would cut her fingers with knives when she would prepare food. He got and idea and used some tape and gauze together. What he did was he got a pair of scissors. Then he cut the tape into small strips. In the middle of each strip he put in a little square of gauze. From then on, whenever his wife would get cut, all she had to do was get one and put them on. The ready-made bandages were then taken in by Johnson and Johnson-the man worked there as a cotton herder- and so they heard of it and started marketing the 'bandaids'. They've been around now for nearly 75 years.
the spells used for healing could be combined with bandaids to help the wounded heal quicker. Like with cuts or poison areas. They could have bandaids on them until the magic potions were able to take effect.


http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~currie/roboadam.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aibo
http://inventors.about.com/od/bstartinventions/a/bandaid.htm
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/story021.htm