There are timelines of machines and their inventions, as well as their inventors. Each machine has a page with a clear picture with the working parts labeled, and sometimes a short animation to further clarify the machine's action. There is a testing feature which is useful, if a bit humbling. The "Research Answer" button posted tantalizingly right at the bottom of each test question is a spur to further research, though I worry about the ethical implications. Does that mammoth think I'm cheating? Does that guy with the mustache and mannerisms of Martin Mull keep track of how many times I "research" an answer, and does that go on my permanent record? Perhaps there should be an on/off toggle.
The links on each machine page to the principles and inventors and vice versa may be where the CD has an advantage over a book, particularly for children. When I'm explaining something to my daughter and she doesn't understand part of the explanation, she wants that missing piece Right Now, and the hot links provide that immediacy. Paging to another part of a book and then loosing her original place frustrates her. That never happens with this CD, because she knows she can always hit the BACK button. It would be even better if there were a FORWARD button like on a browser, because children quickly understand this navigational technique and use it frequently. I notice they pick up and leave off and go back and forth and generally become more involved than with a book.
I was disappointed that the Tele-Prompter was not one of the machines featured. Like others in the television audience in the 1980s, I gaped in wonder as politicians gave huge speeches to live audiences without glancing at their notes. I assumed the glass plates to the right and left of the speaker were security devices to block bullets and flying tomatoes. Also, it would be nice to know how a polygraph works, and whether the polygraph could be combined with a Tele-Prompter to make a more complete machine--what surveyors call a "total station".
The timelines are also quite valuable. You feel better about your own limited understanding of practical things by contemplating such facts as the toilet tank being invented by a contemporary of Shakespeare. And frankly, I think that article could do with a little expansion: where did the flow of water go after it traveled from the newly invented tank of Elizabeth the First's godson? The street outside his window? The River Thames? I know that through my childhood and right up until the time I bought a house I believed that wastes were carried away in pipes in a method involving electricity.
Ever since capsizing a sunfish in 1977, I've wondered how sailboats can be propelled by wind blowing from behind them, and by wind blowing directly into your face as you stand on the deck and gaze at your destination. New Way Things Work provides the answer. Another device it would be interesting to know about is carbon dating and the newer, more accurate (I'm told) argon-argon dating. I want to know the age of the rocks in my back yard. And why haven't we Americans been provided with small, affordable, personal flying devices yet? These and other questions naturally come up; like all good educational tools, this CD raises as many questions as it answers.
