Engineering and technology
Map
Arrows point from what you learn first to what it opens. Point at a concept to light up its chain and where it comes back deeper. Right-click a concept (or press and hold it) for its lessons and stories.
- Proven to depth123
- Open
- Locked
- Comes back deeper
Learning path
In the order the concepts build on each other.
- Communication technologyLockedPeople have always found ways to send messages far. Fires on hilltops passed a simple warning; riders on fresh horses carried letters from post house to post house; the telegraph sent letters as short and long pulses of electricity along a wire; the telephone carried the voice itself; radio and television reached millions of homes without wires; the internet joined computers across the world, and the smartphone put it all in a pocket. Each new technology solved a problem of the one before it.Opens after: Sound and light signals
- Engineering designLockedEngineers make things to meet a need: a vehicle to carry patients, a bridge, a toy car that rolls far. They work in steps: say what is needed, think of many ideas, choose one, build it, test it, and make it better, then test again. A first try almost never works perfectly; each test shows what to change. The shape and the materials are chosen for the job, which is why a digger, a bus and an ambulance look so different.Opens after: Choosing materials, Ways of getting around
- SatellitesLockedA satellite is a machine sent up by rocket to circle the Earth above the air. The Earth's gravity pulls it down, but it moves forward so fast that it keeps falling round the Earth instead of onto it; its path is called its orbit. Satellites pass on television, phone calls and internet from one place to another, photograph clouds and storms for weather forecasts, help phones find where they are, and watch forests, farms and floods.Opens after: The Earth, Gravity
- Satellite positioningLockedA phone finds where it is with satellites. Each satellite keeps sending a message saying where it is and what time it is. The message takes a tiny moment to arrive, and from that moment the phone works out how far away each satellite is. Knowing your distance from one place puts you somewhere on a circle; two distances leave two points; three leave just one, and that is where you are. Phones use more than three satellites to be more exact.Opens after: Satellites
Connections to other domains
- Communication technology needs Sound and light signalsSound
- Engineering design needs Choosing materialsMatter and Its Properties
- Engineering design needs Ways of getting aroundMechanics
- Satellites needs The EarthThe Solar System
- Satellites needs GravityMechanics