Pyramid Building: How to Use a Wedge
Students learn how simple machines, including wedges, were used in building both ancient pyramids and present-day skyscrapers. In a hands-on activity, students test a variety of wedges on different materials (wax, soap, clay, foam). Students gain an understanding of how simple machines are used in engineering applications to make our lives and work easier.
How were pyramids built?Copyright 2015 Sam Valadi, CC BY 2.0, flickr.com, https://www.flickr.com/photos/132084522@N05/16344178454
Wedges perform work on materials and enable engineers to build or cut materials into desired shapes. One of the most common uses of a wedge is as a construction or manufacturing tool. Technological advances have modified the way we use the wedge as a tool. For example, the jackhammer — an automated chiseling device — is a modern-day wedge. When designing a wedge for a specific task, engineers design the wedge angle (or sharpness) and determine the wedge material appropriate for the task. Engineers use a wedge to gain a mechanical advantage — a trade-off that results in the amount of cutting one must do being increased, but the cutting being much easier to perform.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Understand what a wedge is and how it has been used in the past and present to help do work.
- Hypothesize how wedges might have been used in pyramid building.
- Describe how engineers use their understanding of material properties to choose the correct tool material.