Hello. We have finished 1 more Humanities project. Methaphor machines. But let’s backtrack a bit to the start of the unit.
Our driving question:
Throughout this unit we have been working on the Industrial Revolution. This was a time where many ideas were flourishing and they were starting to change the way people farmed and lived. So what was our driving question? How do ideas drive change?
Leviathan:
One of our side things throughout the unit and project was the novel study. We read the book Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. Honestly, I recommend, it was a pretty good book and it’s part of a series.
We divided the book into three parts. Chapters 1-14, 15-28, and 29-end. After each week we would get together into groups with different role sheets for each part.
Connector: you make connections between the book and real life or other things.
Coder: you basically draw a scene of the book that you thought was important and wrote why.
Director: you formulate deep and thoughtful questions to discuss with the rest of your group.
The book was chosen because of it’s genre of steampunk. Part of the unit was the industrial and agricultural revolution. Especially in the industrial revolution, steam engines were crucial. That’s kind of why the genre of Leviathan is relevant to the Unit.
Check out my steampunk post at
Our main task (Metaphor Machines):
Our main project for the unit, was to make a Rube Goldberg Machine (like the one below) and make it a metaphor for a certain revolution. And did I mention that it was a group project, shoutout to my group members Aedan, Anika, Gabby. Now before the video of the Rube Goldberg machine, what is that? It’s machine that causes a chain reaction like dominoes falling and knocking a ball down a pipe and so on.
Scimathics aspect:
The scientific involvement in the project was with electric currents and circuits. Part of our machine had to have a circuit with lights or a small motor on it. We chose to have some lights that turn on when a golf ball knocks down a piece of cardboard separating the wires that when they touch close the circuit and the lights turn on.
While we were doing experiments with the lights, I may or may not have stuck a tiny lightbulb in an electrical socket. The goal was to see who could light it the brightest and in that aspect I won by far. But it lasted less than a second because it kind of exploded. I quickly realized it was not a good idea.
Now the involvement of math were the scale diagrams we had to draw in order to make our machine. Math’s involvement in the project was very low key but it snuck in there.
Humanities aspect:
Throughout the unit we covered the Industrial Revolution/Agricultural Revolution. At the start we did some studies on what a revolution is. So we learned about Crane Brinton’s Revolution theory. Below is the cycle he describes in his theory. While we learning about it we were told to think of a revolution as a disease. It starts with the symptoms. Then you start feeling them harder and harder until you’re to just really sick. Next it starts going away until you feel better. And finally you’re back to square 1.
We also learned on how all the new inventions created a new incentive to make villages bigger. Factories could now be in cities. At the same time, new inventions in the farms were starting to make farming easier. Also farms were starting to be not huge fields but rectangles or squares fenced off . This started making it harder for poor farmers. Rich farmers would buy the poor farmers lands and get richer. The poor farmers had to then start to migrate to cities in look for jobs.
The final product:
Below is the video of our final product. Hope you enjoy it. By the way, Aedan did pretty much all the editing. That’s probably why he’s so featured in the video. That narcissistic kid. I’m just kidding.
You have reached the end of yet another post. See you soon.