Ezra Harris

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  • Soap – History of Inventions – Lesson 32

    We use soap every day for bathing, washing our hands, etc. Before soap was invented, the Romans had used oil then they would scrape it off with a metal scraper. We do know for sure when soap was, invented, but there is a story of how the Romans were sacrificing animals on a mountain called Mt Sapo, the animal fat combined with the ashes created soap. But that is probably not a true story. Ancient Egyptians had also written down on a papyrus a recipe for soap, but we are not sure if that was just used for cleaning the wool when they made clothes.

    But around 200 AD, there was a man named Galen, who was a doctor for several Roman emperors. He wrote down that the best soap came from the Germans and the Gauls. In 500AD there was a soap guild in Italy, in 1200 AD England started making large quantities of soap, in 1400 AD France also began to make lots of soap near Marseille, and in 1800 AD there were soap factories.

    Soap is made with Lye and animal fat or plant fat. The process for mixing them is called Saponification.

  • The iMac

    About a year ago, we had been given an old 2009 iMac from some of our friends. The iMac was slow, but we used it for our schoolwork. I had wanted to reset the computer, but I wasn’t sure if it would ruin the computer or not, but eventually, I decided to reset the computer. Well, it didn’t work, it had not gone back to its original program, and since I never created a backup, it was just stuck in the “select a drive” state. I had worked hours trying to get it to work. But nothing I did worked, so the iMac just sat there in my room for about three or four months. Until recently when I remembered that Nicholas had installed Ubuntu on a USB flash drive for his desktop computer, so I looked up how to install Ubuntu on a mac computer it said ” to plug in the USB flash drive then turn on your mac hold down alt/option and select the USB drive and then press the install” I followed the steps, and it started installing Ubuntu. I was very excited that it was going to work finally. I went through the ubuntu setup process then it was set up and ready, except for one thing the wireless internet chip driver for Ubuntu wasn’t installed, so I looked up how to fix that, and there was a lot of answers that I tried, but none of them worked. I don’t know whether I didn’t do the instructions right or not or if the version was wrong. But I skype called my brother, Nicholas, who has used Ubuntu before and who would know how to fix the problem. I had screen shared my screen on the iMac, and he helped me fix the problem. I didn’t understand everything that he told me to do, but he said that the computer needed a CD for installing the driver for the wireless internet chip. But he was able to make the USB flash drive seem like a cd to the computer, and the computer downloaded the driver. The iMac is now working, and I use it for schoolwork and skype.

  • Stop-motion

    There is a type of video called stop-motion; stop motion is a ton of photos played fast and that forms a video. I tried out an app called stop motion studio. Stop motion studio is an easy cheap app that you can use to take pictures on, and once you are finished you can play the photos together as a video, you can also adjust the speed of the film. and you can add sound effects, green screen backgrounds, titles, and more. I had purchased the pro version of the stop motion studio because if you don’t the app will only allow you to use the camera and the photo playback. I love that I can use the greenscreen because it sometimes helps when I don’t have a good background. Here is a film with legos that I did earlier: 

     

  • Spread and Adoption of the Wheelbarrows – History of Inventions – Lesson 31

    The most common type of wheelbarrow used today by China is a type of wheelbarrow where the wheel is in the middle of the wheelbarrow. Here is a picture of that: 

    The center wheel design is also used for carrying people around on it, and it could hold up to six people on it! Some of the Chinese wheelbarrows had sails on them for easier pushing/pulling if it was a big load and if they were going a long way, here is a picture of that: 

    The Europeans had probably come up with the idea of the wheelbarrow by themselves because there is no trace of the Europeans getting the invention of the wheelbarrow from China. I find interesting that China had used sails on their wheelbarrows for helping them to push or pull it around.

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