Anita Yasuda - Explore Simple Machines!: With 25 Great Projects

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Simple machines are all around you. They are in your home, your school, and your park. They are used in sports. They are in the games you play, even in board games. Simple machines can even be found in your body!

simple machine: a tool that uses one movement to complete work.

mechanical advantage: how a simple machine increases the amount of work someone is able to do. It makes a task easier.

Simple machines by themselves have few or no moving parts. They help us to pull, push, lift, and divide. Your muscle powernot electricity or gasolinemakes them work. Simple machines cant do all the work, but they make things easier! This is called a mechanical advantage.

• lever: a bar that rests on a support and lifts or moves things.
• inclined plane: a flat surface that connects a lower level to a higher level.
• wheel and axle: a wheel with a rod that turn together to lift and move loads. The axle is the rod around which the wheel rotates.
• screw: an inclined plane or lever wrapped around a pole that pulls one thing toward another.
• wedge: an object with slanted sides ending in a sharp edge that lifts or splits another object.
• pulley: grooved wheels with ropes used to lift something or change its direction.

compound machine: two or more simple machines working together.

Most machines include more than one simple machine. These are called compound machines. A wagon is a compound machine. It has four wheels and two axles. The handle is a lever. Some compound machines are quite complex with many working parts, such as bulldozers or cars. Compound machines can be found in factories that make the things we use every day. They can even help us explore space and the oceans!

In this book you will be asked to look for simple machines in your home. You will figure out how they work and why they do the things they do. Youll get to do lots of fun experiments and projects. Plus, youll learn some silly jokes and a lot of amazing facts. So get ready to Explore Simple Machines!

People have been using simple machines since ancient times. They used them in spears and in bows and arrows to hunt, on boats to move from place to place, and on the farm to plow and harvest crops. Simple machines were even used to build fantastic structures like the Egyptian pyramids and the Roman Coliseum!

Moving a heavy bag of sand with your bare hands is a tough job. But what if you had a simple machine to help? Then you could push the bag up a plank of wood, move it with a wheelbarrow, or lift it with a shovel. By changing the power, speed, or direction of a movement, simple machines make your work easier.

In science, the term work does not mean homework. Work is a force that moves an object a distance. For example, you did work when you picked up this book. You did more work when you flipped the pages. Whenever you lift, push or pull something, you are doing work.