Hanging Gardens of Babylon - Pulleys

Week 9: We created a pulley system like one that may have been used to water the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

There are three different types of simple machines.

• Lever
• Inclined Plane, Screw, Wedge
• Wheel and Axel, Pulley

Last week we studied The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and created an Archimedes screw which may have been used to water the gardens. Another possible way the gardens may have been watered is through the use of a pulley system. This week we created our own pulley system.

The goal was to use the pulleys and materials on the left to lift light-weight balls from the base of the stairs to the blue Ishtar Gate.

One problem became evident right from the start. How would the portion of the string with the cup attached pass through the pulley?

The kids solution was to use a building toy with wheels instead of the provided pulleys.

Several designs were explored and tested before arriving at the final design.

Another issue was getting the pulleys to stay in place. The kids used tape. My husband would have used tape too. It worked.

Finally the found a solution that worked. This project took the majority of the afternoon to complete and was a lesson in engineering as well as working together. When it was finished they were so proud and I was very happy it worked out.

To see the slides for our Mesopotamia studies please visit my awesome friend Amy's blog. I have reorganized our activities and lessons to go in a slightly different order than we actually studied them. For that reason my lesson numbers don't completely agree with Amy's who has taught me so much about history. To see our other history activities please visit our history page.

This post is linked to:
Hip Homeschool Hop
The Chicken Chick
Monday Kid Corner
Miscellany Monday 
TGIF Linky
Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons