- Combine
- Solar Compass
- Propeller
- Mechanical Computer
Combine
John Hascall left New York to move to Michigan to get started in the farming industry, but he had an issue. He couldn’t harvest all the crops in time. So his neighbor, Hiram Moore, invented the combine to help Hascall finish his harvesting. The combine combines the stages of harvesting, reaping, threshing, and winnowing (separating the chaff from the wheat). It shoots it out into a truck that carries the harvest away. It was pulled by a team of horses, tractors, and were later self-propelled. The result of the combine was more food output, which means lower food prices, which means more food we can buy with our money, which means less empty stomachs, which means more happiness!
Solar Compass
The solar compass is a supplement for the magnetic compass around iron ore. It was complex and I might not know one if I saw one. I would NOT know how to use one for sure. It became the standard tool for surveying after the patent expired.
Propeller
The paddle wheel was the most dominant propulsion for boats before the propeller after Robert Fulton began the steamboat industry. Francis Pettit Smith invented the propeller with 8 blades, 4 in the front, and 4 in the back. 4 blades broke during an experiment, and he found the new propeller worked better than his first one. It had numerous advantages over the paddle wheel, such as steering the boat easier. The propeller is now the most widely used method of propelling boats in the world, and it also led to airplane propulsion.
Mechanical Computer
Charles Babbage made plans for a VERY complex calculator, which would also be an early computer. It was never built in his lifetime, but his first(, and not as complex) one was completed in the early 2000’s. It also had a first printer. The Jaquard Loom‘s programing system sparked Babbage’s mind into using punched cards for his computer. Did you know, that the first computer programmer, who programed Babbage’s first machine, was a she? Ada Lovelace by name. Babbage’s diagrams were used to make one of the first electrical computers ever for IBM.