


The first rigid airship to fly was built in the 1890s. Its skeleton and outer cover were made of aluminum, and it was powered by a 12-horsepower Daimler gas engine connected to three propellers. Designed by David Schwarz, a timber merchant from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it lifted off successfully in a tethered test at Templehof near Berlin, Germany, on November 3, 1897. But its propeller belts broke, the pilot lost control, and the airship crashed.
The major designer and manufacturer of rigid airships in the early part of the twentieth century was the German company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, owned by Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin. Zeppelins were used as offensive weapons by Germany during World War I, dropping bombs on both Paris and London until the Allies became more effective at attacking them.
The United States also used an observation balloon during World War I, the Caquot Type R, named for its designer, Lieutenant Albert Caquot of France. It measured 92 feet long and 32 feet in diameter, could stay aloft in winds as high as 70 miles per hour, and held 32,200 cubic feet (912 cubic meters) of hydrogen. It was used on the Western Front in France during the war. Nearly a thousand Caquot balloons were manufactured in the United States during 1918-1919. The British also used this balloon in limited quantity during World War II.
BY JAKE BAUER
The word derives from the Greek πλαστικός (plastikos) meaning fit for molding, and πλαστός (plastos) meaning molded.
Timeline - Beginning of the Plastic Era with Semi Synthetics
· 1839 - Polystyrene or PS discovered - Eduard Simon
· 1862 - Parkesine - Alexander Parkes
· 1863 - Cellulose Nitrate or Celluloid - John Wesley Hyatt
· 1872 - Polyvinyl Chloride or PVC - first created by Eugen Baumann
· 1894 - Viscose Rayon - Charles Frederick Cross, Edward John Bevan
Timeline - Thermosetting Plastics and Thermoplastics
· 1908 - Cellophane ® - Jacques E. Brandenberger
· 1909 - First true plastic Phenol-Formaldehyde tradenamed Bakelite - Leo Hendrik Baekeland
· 1926 - Vinyl or PVC - Walter Semon invented a plasticized PVC.
· 1927 - Cellulose Acetate
· 1933 - Polyvinylidene chloride or Saran also called PVDC - accidentally discovered by Ralph Wiley, a Dow Chemical lab worker.
· 1935 - Low-density polyethylene or LDPE - Reginald Gibson and Eric Fawcett
· 1936 - Acrylic or Polymethyl Methacrylate
· 1937 - Polyurethanes tradenamed Igamid for plastics materials and Perlon for fibers. - Otto Bayer and co-workers discovered and patented the chemistry of polyurethanes
· 1938 - Polystyrene made practical
· 1938 - Polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE tradenamed Teflon - Roy Plunkett
· 1939 - Nylon and Neoprene considered a replacement for silk and a synthetic rubber respectively Wallace Hume Carothers
· 1941 - Polyethylene Terephthalate or Pet - Whinfield and Dickson
· 1942 - Low Density Polyethylene
· 1942 - Unsaturated Polyester also called PET patented by John Rex Whinfield and James Tennant Dickson
· 1951 - High-density polyethylene or HDPE tradenamed Marlex - Paul Hogan and Robert Banks
· 1951 - Polypropylene or PP - Paul Hogan and Robert Banks
· 1953 - Saran Wrap introduced by Dow Chemicals.
· 1954 - Styrofoam a type of foamed polystyrene foam was invented by Ray McIntire for Dow Chemicals
· 1964 - Polyimide
· 1970 - Thermoplastic Polyester this includes trademarked Dacron, Mylar, Melinex, Teijin, and Tetoron
· 1978 - Linear Low Density Polyethylene
· 1985 - Liquid Crystal Polymers
The Cotton Gin
WHAT: (Some back ground information- physical attributes and what it was use
d for)
· A machine that automated the separation of cottonseed from the short-staple cotton fiber.
· Eli Whitney's machine was the first to clean short-staple cotton.
· His cotton engine consisted of spiked teeth mounted on a boxed revolving cylinder which, when turned by a crank, pulled the cotton fiber through small slotted openings so as to separate the seeds from the lint, a rotating brush, operated via a belt and pulleys, removed the lint from the projecting spikes.
WHO INVENTED IT: Eli Whitney was the inventor of the cotton gin and a pioneer in the mass production of cotton. Whitney was born in Westboro, Massachusetts on December 8, 1765 and died on January 8, 1825. He graduated from Yale College in 1792. By April 1793, Whitney had designed and constructed the cotton gin
WHERE:
· It was invented in the state of Georgia.
· Eli Whitney, a native to the state of Massachusetts went to Georgia to make his fortune just as many other New Englanders were doing at the time
WHEN: 1972
INVENTIONS ADVANTAGES:
· This machine was created to ease the tremendous burdens of those who labored to pick the seeds from the cotton.
· This machine could clean as much cotton as fifty men could working by hand
· It projected America into a mechanized world, where machines make work easier for man
· Though the economy and many individuals benefited financially from the gin and it’s increased yield production
· Through the use of horse-drawn and water-powered gins, the ginning process was speeded up enormously. This permitted increased cotton production and lowered costs.
· The Cotton Gin started the American Industrial Revolution.
INVENTIONS DISADVANTAGES:
· A disastrous factory fire prevented enough gins to meet the demand, and manufacturers throughout the South began to copy the invention.
· It had disastrous effects on the institution of slavery
· Cotton became the cheapest and most widely used textile fabric in the world and the “need” for slaves thusly increased.
· Capital had been invested in slaves, not in transportation or factories.
Picture of Eli and his partner ordering slaves-
Percentage of slaves that had increased because of America’s Industrial Revolution-
Cotton ready to be picked-
VIDEO ON HISTORY OF THE COTTON GIN:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C_3RYmKggw
References:
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06/09/300m_innovations/image/02_cotton.jpg
http://www.eliwhitney.org/museum/eli-whitney/cotton-gin
http://www.essortment.com/all/cottongin_rciv.htm
http://inventors.about.com/od/cstartinventions/a/cotton_gin_2.htm
By: Sophia Diakoloukas
An airship or dirigible is a lighter-than-air aircraft that can be steered and propelled through the air using rudders and propellers or other thrust.
In some countries, airships are also known as dirigibles from the French (diriger to direct plus -ible), meaning "directable" or steerable.
Airships were the first aircraft to make controlled, powered flight, and were widely used before the 1940s, but their use decreased over time as their capabilities were surpassed by those of airplanes.
The prospect of airships as bombers had been recognised in Europe well before the airships were up to the task. H. G. Wells' The War in the Air (1908) described the obliteration of entire fleets and cities by airship attack. On 5 March 1912, Italian forces became the first to use dirigibles for a military purpose during reconnaissance west of Tripoli behind Turkish lines. It was World War I, however, that marked the airship's real debut as a weapon.