Tag Archives: Invention

Rolling Pin

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Rolling Pin

Roll out the mix with a rolling pin.

  • Rolling pins are an invention of a cylindrical shape that are generally used to flatten and level out food, most often dough, although they are also commonly used to roll out icing for cake decorating purposes.
  • Sometimes rolling pins have handles attached to both ends of the pin, a long rod, although the handle can be a shaped part of the pin itself.
  • Rolling pins range from 2 to 10 centimetres (0.8 to 4 inches) in diameter, and they can be as small as 12.7 centimetres (5 inches) in length and as long as 51 cm (20 inches).
  • Thinner rolling pins are generally rolled using the palm, while wider rolling pins generally have handles and generally have a greater force behind the push.
  • Rolling pins can be made of plastic, glass, wood, ceramic, steel, marble and silicone; and some are designed to have anti-stick properties.

Rolling Pin, Trivia, Ten Random Facts, Invention, Culinary, Assortment, Wooden, Plastic

  • Some rolling pins may be heated or cooled, or filled with warm or cold water, to achieve a better effect when rolling certain foods.
  • It is believed that rolling pins were first used by the Etruscan civilisation in ancient Italy from around 800 BC, and were used to flatten dough.
  • There is a popular stereotype of housewives brandishing a rolling pin as a weapon when angered.
  • One of the first rolling pins to have separately attached handles that moved independently of the pin was patented in 1879, by American Philip Cromer.
  • Some rolling pins have indents or extrusions on the pin surface that imprints designs and patterns into the food.
Bibliography:
Rolling Pin, 2015, How Products Are Made, http://www.madehow.com/Volume-7/Rolling-Pin.html
Rolling Pin, 2015, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_pin

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Chess

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Chess

Chess – a game of complex strategy. What will be your next move?

  • Chess is a strategic game played on an 8 by 8 square checkered board, by moving specific pieces to attack and capture.
  • There are 32 pieces, 16 per player, and six different types of pieces in a game of chess; one king, one queen, two bishops, two rooks, two knights and eight pawns.
  • Chess is a game played by two people that take turns, and only a single piece may move per turn in most circumstances, while legal movements vary across pieces.
  • The aim of chess is to put the opponent’s king in a position where capture is unavoidable during the next turn, a position known as ‘checkmate’.
  • Pieces in chess are usually colour-coded white and black, and white always moves first in a game and is generally considered to have an advantage.

Chess, Board, Game, White, Black, Pieces, Gameplay, Game, Trivia, Ten Random Facts, Invention, Setup, Strategy

  • A form of chess was played in Persia around the 600s AD, where it was called ‘chatrang’ or ‘shatranj’, and it is said to be based on a game known as ‘chaturaṅga’ originating from 280 to 550 AD in East India, which featured predecessors of the modern rook, pawn, bishop and knight.
  • Chess reached Europe by the 800s, and alterations to the game were made from the 1200s and continued through to the late 1400s, with notable updates to the rules regarding the pawns, bishops and queens.
  • Englishman Howard Staunton coordinated a chess competition in 1851 in the United Kingdom’s London, and this first contemporary contest was won by German Adolf Anderssen, while the first World Championship occurred in 1886, won by Wilhelm Steinitz from Austria.
  • In its history, chess was used as a way to teach soldiers and knights tactical manoeuvres and strategies for battle, although it is now a game played by children and adults, mostly for entertainment purposes.
  • Through the use of complex computer algorithms, computers have been designed to be able to play chess almost since the birth of the first digital computers in the mid 1900s, while the first computer to beat a World Chess Champion was Deep Blue in 1997, and since then computers have become increasingly difficult for humans to beat.

 

Bibliography:
An Illustrated History of Chess, n.d, Ancient Chess, http://ancientchess.com/page/01.htm
Chess, 2015, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess

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Frisbee

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Frisbee

Frisbees glide quite smoothly through the air. That is, when they’re not being used competitively!

  • A ‘Frisbee’, ‘flying disc’ or ‘disc’,  is an invention shaped like a disc, primarily used to entertain, but it is also used as the main piece of equipment in the ‘ultimate’ disc field sport.
  • Frisbees are thrown by a flick action of the wrist, and are often thrown casually to and from people in a group.
  • The typical diameter of Frisbees or flying discs ranges from 20 to 25 centimetres (8 to 10 inches), however they are available in smaller and larger sizes.
  • The name ‘Frisbee’ is said to have originated from the Frisbie Pie Company’s metal pie tins that were used by university students as flying discs, and it is a trademark name owned by Wham-O, an American toy company, who bought the rights to the invention in 1957.
  • The first Frisbee discs were metal food tin lids and cake pans used by American Walter Frederick Morrison and his would-be wife Lu in the 1930s, which they eventually sold to passers-by for 25 cents, making a 20 cent profit.

Frisbee, Invention, Trivia, Ten Random Facts, Invention, Sport, Assortment, Ring, Red, Orange, Blue

  • Fred Morrison, as he was commonly known, developed his disc idea when he became a pilot during World War II and suffered a period of imprisonment, and he finalised and commercialised his plastic invention in 1948 with Warren Franscioni, and called it a ‘Flyin-Saucer’.
  • The modern Frisbee stems from a redesign made in 1955 by Fred Morrison, which was later improved by Edward Headrick in 1964 to make the disc more accurate and stable when thrown.
  • While Frisbee has been a popular brand of flying disc, Discraft is a major brand of discs in the sporting industry and are commonly used for ultimate games and competition purposes, and as of 2015, the furthest a flying disc has been thrown is 263.2 metres (863.5 feet), by Simon Lizotte of Germany, in 2014.
  • The Frisbee was used in a sporting game in the late 1960s by students of Columbia High School in Maplewood, in the United States, which developed into the sport now known as ‘ultimate’.
  • Frisbees and flying discs are kept airborne by creating lift through the spinning caused by a throw, combined with the shape of the disc.
Bibliography:
Flying Disc, 2015, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_disc
Of the Game, 2015, What Is Ultimate, http://www.whatisultimate.com/history/of-the-game/
Toy company Wham-O produces first Frisbees, 2015, History.com, http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/toy-company-wham-o-produces-first-frisbees

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The Game of Life

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The Game of Life

You cannot get such a more realistic game than The Game of Life.

  • The Game of Life is a board game that somewhat replicates the average life of a person, from college through to retirement, by advancing along spaces on the board.
  • ‘The Game of Life’ is also known as ‘LIFE’, and it generally uses cars as game pieces, with small pink or blue pegs to represent people.
  • The Game of Life is based on the original and highly successful version of the game called ‘The Checkered Game of Life’, which was designed by Milton Bradley, an American lithographer, in 1860, after his print run of presidential candidate portraits of Abraham Lincoln failed to sell, due to Lincoln growing a beard after they had been printed.
  • Milton Bradley’s 1860 version of The Game of Life involved the player advancing across a checkered board to gain points, and it was designed with his own morals in mind, which resulted in negative consequences for spaces depicting suicide, gambling, jail, ruin, poverty and the like.
  • The Checkered Game of Life was overhauled and revamped on its 100th anniversary in 1960, and resulted in the modern style version, The Game of Life, designed by Americans Bill Markham and Reuben Klamer for the Milton Bradley Company.

Game of Life, Game, Trivia, Ten Random Facts, Board Game, Spinner, Old, 3D

  • The three-dimensional modern style game board of The Game of Life, first produced in the 1960s, was the first of its kind, and it featured moulded plastic buildings, mountains and bridges.
  • The aim of The Game of Life is to collect the most money by the end of ‘life’, which is generally collected by luckily landing on specific spaces and/or by various choices made throughout the game.
  • The numbered spinner famous in The Game of Life has its origins in the numbered spinning top or teetotum, used to move across the game board in the 1860s version, as dice were considered inappropriate by Milton Bradley, due to their association with gambling, which went against his morals.
  • There have been various updates on The Game of Life over the years, and numerous versions of the game, and while each have their differences, life events that are, or have been depicted in The Game of Life, including marriage, college, having children, suing, insurance and the like.
  • As of 2010, more than 50 million copies of The Game of Life had been sold since 1960, and it had been created in at least 20 different languages.
Bibliography:
Edwards P, Why the Game of Life used to have poverty, suicide, and ruin, 2015, Vox, http://www.vox.com/2015/1/28/7924487/game-of-life-history
The Game of Life, 2015, The Strong, http://www.toyhalloffame.org/toys/game-life
The Game of Life, 2015, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_Life

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Gasoline

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Gasoline

If it doesn’t run on diesel, it’ll probably run on gasoline.

  • Gasoline is a liquid fuel used to power engines that produce power through the process of combustion, and it is commonly used in vehicles like automobiles, as well as lawn mowers.
  • ‘Gasoline’ is also known as ‘petrol’ or ‘petroleum’, and also by the general term ‘fuel’, and the product is a combination of hydrogen and carbon, a ‘hydrocarbon’.
  • Although gasoline is generally produced clear in colour, it is sometimes dyed yellow, purple, orange or red to visually distinguish between fuel types and grades.
  • Gasoline is sourced from crude oil, or ‘petroleum’ as it is also known, and the oil undergoes a distilling process which produces kerosene among other products, and the petrol produced is a by-product of this process.
  • The raw gasoline distilled from oil is generally unsuitable for use in engines as it causes engine knocking, and so to remedy this, chemical additives are included in the mixture, and these were originally lead based chemicals until leaded-fuels where banned in most countries from the 1970s onwards.

Petrol, Gasoline, Petroleum, Trivia, Ten Random Facts, Red, Liquid, Fuel, Cup, Code, Invention

  • Significant amounts of carbon dioxide are released on combustion of gasoline, and this, as well as the toxic nature of petrol leaks, and the non-renewable source of the fuel, has led it to be marked as not environmentally friendly.
  • Gasoline contains around 15 different chemicals that are poisonous to humans on consumption, and the fuel gives off a strong vapour which is toxic to humans if inhaled, although some people deliberately sniff the substance and as a result, petrol called ‘Opal’, that has a much reduced odour, has been introduced to some areas where sniffing is a serious problem.
  • In 1859, the American oil driller Edwin Drake, is said to have distilled the first gasoline, although he disposed of it under the assumption it would be of no use; and it was not until the 1890s that it was first used in automobiles.
  • After a year or so, gasoline is generally rendered too unstable and thus unusable for most engines, and is best disposed ofor used with the addition of fresh fuel, although a stabiliser can be added to fuel to extend its shelf life.
  • Gasoline is widely available at service stations, and in 2015 it cost between 50 cents and $7 US dollars for 3.8 litres (1 gallon) depending on the country, and the fuel is notoriously more expensive in Europe.
Bibliography:
Bellis M, History of Gasoline, 2015, About Money, http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/gasoline.htm
Gasoline, 2015, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline
Gasoline (Petrol), n.d, AMMA Resource Industry Employment Group, http://www.miningoilgasjobs.com.au/oil-gas-energy/hydrocarbons-and-energy/hydrocarbons/oil-and-gas/downstream/gasoline.aspx
History of Gasoline, 2014, US Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=gasoline_history

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Battleship

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Battleship

Battleship is a highly intense game that involves… saying coordinates.

  • Battleship is a two player board or paper game that involves destroying your opponent’s various watercrafts using strategic guesswork.
  • ‘Battleship’ is also known as ‘Sea Battle’ and ‘Battleships’, and there are numerous other versions of the game known by other names.
  • A typical game of Battleship is played by placing ‘ships’ on a designated grid and then each player proceeds to find and destroy their opponent’s watercraft by ‘shooting’ it, which is done by calling random grid coordinates.
  • Traditionally a game of Battleship uses five different boats of 5, 4, 3, 3 and 2 squares in length, although watercraft may be different sizes and of different numbers.
  • A variety of different terms are used to name each different watercraft; the Milton Bradley version referring to each as, from the smallest size, a ‘patrol boat’, ‘submarine’, ‘destroyer’, ‘battleship’ and ‘aircraft carrier’.

Battleships, Game, progress, Variation, Gun, Ships, Plastic, Red, Shot, Ten Random Facts, Trivia

  • Battleship was originally known as ‘Salvo’, which is thought to have been first played by Russian officials before the first world war, and a commercial paper and pencil version with the same name was produced in 1931 by the American company Starex Novelty Company.
  • Originally Battleship was played using sheets of paper containing a grid, and a writing tool, although the game company Milton Bradley invented reusable plastic boards and small plastic ships in 1967 for the game, that has since become more popular than the paper version, and other companies have made similar styled versions.
  • The commercial Milton Bradley Battleship game introduced the white and red colour coding used to mark a miss or hit respectively, using small pegs that slot into holes in the grid.
  • Grids sizes vary in each version of the Battleship game, though traditionally it is 10 by 10 squares, labelled with letters on the y-axis and numbers on the x-axis.
  • The first computerised version of Battleship was designed in 1979, and was one of the first games scripted for a computer.
Bibliography:
Battleship (Game), 2015, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_(game)
Salvo Is New Game With a Nautical Air, 1931,  The Milwaukee Journal, 1 July, p. 8. Google Newspapers

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