
TOOLS FOR CRAFTS AND ENGINEERING
Engineering is a very wide field and involves the use of many tools. Auto-mechanic and auto-electrician are common occupations.
At the craft level, carpenters and blacksmiths also use special tools.
Visit a carpenter’s shop and find out which tools are used there. Draw them and describe them. Do the same for the tools to be found in the blacksmith’s shed, and the auto-mechanic and auto-electrician’s workshop.
The carpenter uses a saw to cut the wood, and a plane to smooth the surface of the wood. A saw is a metal blade, one edge of which has zigzags cut into it, giving it ‘teeth’. The wood is cut by moving the toothed edge of the blade over it many times. To join two pieces of wood together the carpenter uses a hammer to drive a nail into them, or he sticks them together with glue. To drill a hole in the wood, he uses a hand drill. The hammer and the drill help him to do something he could not do without them. He could not push the nail in with his fingers, nor could he make a hole in the wood that way.
The carpenters’ tools not only help them to do a job more quickly and more easily, they also help them to do a better, and neater job.
We have said that a plane is used to smooth the surface of wood. What other methods does the carpenter use?
In a blacksmith’s shed, you will have seen tools such as the bellows which he uses to keep his coal or charcoal red-hot by blowing air through the furnace.
As soon as the metal is red-hot, a long pair of tongs is used to take the metal out. It is immediately placed in a vice and hammered to the desired shape. The blacksmith will probably not be strong enough to bend the cool metal, but when it is red-hot it is softer and there is no difficulty. In this case the heat energy of the surface has been used to soften the metal and so the smith himself does not have to use so much of his own energy.
You could be very familiar with the road side auto-mechanic. He uses a spanner to undo the nuts in the car and a screw driver to undo the screws. In order to work underneath a motor vehicle, he often jacks the vehicle up with a jack, or drives the car up to a ramp.
An important source of energy for a motor vehicle is he battery. There are electrical wires connected to some parts of a vehicle. The auto-electricians use spanners and screwdriver to remove nuts and screws in order to nave access to various parts of the connecting wires and repair any faults. They need pliers to cut and scrape the outer covering of electrical wire so as to allow proper contact between wires at electrical junctions.
TOOLS IN MEDICINE
You should have identified the pair of scissors which is a very sharp instrument used for cutting in surgical operations. The forceps is another familiar tool used in hospital theatres.
Other basic tools used in medicine with which you will be familiar, are the syringe, injection needle, stretcher, wheel chair, and bed. Each of these has a unique function. A drug is easily injected into a patient’s bloodstream by means of the syringe and needle. When someone is injured, he or she is carried on a stretcher to a room where medical attention is given. Patients are wheeled easily in a bed to the operating theatre and back to the wards. When serious injuries occur to the legs which prevent a person from walking, the wheelchair can be used to transport him to the place where treatment is given. An injured person can use crutches to move about.
TRADITIONAL AND MODERN TOOLS
With traditional tools, such as hoes and cutlasses (used for digging the ground and for cutting trees respectively), much human energy is needed to use them. With modern tools, the human energy needed to use them is very small.
One man can use a modern tool to do, in a few hours, the work which otherwise would take several men a week to do.
The saving in energy and by the use of modern tools is very well illustrated in for example in the felling of an Iroko tree. Using a cutlass, this is tedious and tiring to do. When a big saw is used the job is completed more quickly and less human energy is used up. When an electrically-operated saw is used, the human energy involved is negligibly small, the job is completed in a short time, and the cutting very finely done.
In some hospitals, a nurse need not take an expectant mother’s pulse and respiration, and the baby’s heartbeat, manually, but instead uses a machine which records all these events on graph paper. The graph is analysed just by looking at it to obtain all the information required. The nurse’s time and energy are saved by this process.
The use of science to solve our problems in society continues. Whatever occupation we find ourselves in, we should continue to look for ways of saving our energy and time by using the right tools.
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