Week 9 Invention

This week I learned about four inventions: the Steam Plow, the Steam Shovel, the Postage Stamp, and finally Vulcanized Rubber.  I will explain what these inventions are and how they have helped change the world.

The first invention is the Steel Plow.  The Steel Plow was invented by a man named John Deere.  One day John Deere heard farmers complaining of how hard it was to plow the sticky prairie soil.  So he invented the Steel Plow which was self cleaning.  It impacted history because people could plow the nutritious prairie soil quickly and without having to stop every five minutes to wipe the dirt off the plower.  (Fun Fact, the government made a short movie that tried to blame John Deere’s Steel Plow for the big prairie dust bowls, but the farmers knew that the real cause of the dust bowls was the fact that it had not rained for about a decade.)

The next invention is the Steam Shovel.  The Steam Shovel looks kind of like an excavator.  The giant claws would come down and grab the dirt.  Then it would move the dirt and drop it in a different spot.  The Steam Shovel has helped make life easier because instead of it taking four or five weeks to dig a tunnel or a foundation, it would only take two or three weeks.

The next invention is called the Postage Stamp.  The receiver of the letter used to pay for the letter.  That meant if there is an urgent message for someone but if they were too poor to receive it, then they would not get to read the letter.  That is why the postage stamp was invented.  So now the sender would pay for the letter, not the receiver.  This changed the world because now if there was important news in the letter, the receiver could read the letter.  So even if the receiver was poor they could still read the letter.

The last invention is Vulcanized Rubber.  Vulcanized Rubber is used to make tires and the soles of shoes.  It is made by mixing sulfur into rubber and heating it up.  It expands in the cold, which is what caused the Challenger to explode.  The rubber seals were broken and the rocket blew up.  NASA knew that the seals might break but they sent up the rocket anyways.

So my favorite invention is the Postage Stamp.  I really like it because some stamps can be really pretty.