Finding our Bearings... !

Fully trained and ready for adventure we attempt our first real journey back in time.

Focus your minds and turn your dials to the year 1898 - 113 years ago! are you ready to go? ok lets travel back in time, way back 

past your arrival in the world (if you're year 4 or 5 that is!), past the first ever text message being sent on a mobile phone (1992), past the invention of the post it note (1974)
, past england winning the world cup (1966), past the first skateboard to appear (1958)
past the second world war, (1939-45), past the invention of bubble gum (1928)
past the first world war, (1914-1918), past the first helicopter flight (1907)
, past the invention of the vacuum cleaner (1901).....

OK, slow down time travellers, we’ve arrived in 1898, turn off your engines, take your goggles off and park up your time machines.... !

So here we are in Chelmsford in 1898 where two cousins, Geoffrey and Charles Barrett, had set up a ball bearing factory in New Street near the town. But their bearings were tear drop shape and they couldn't no matter how hard they tried get their bearings to be round. So they persuaded an American chap, Ernst Gustav Hoffman (think he was Swiss American actually!) who had invented a machine that made perfect little silver balls, to join them and there you have it The Hoffmann Manufacturing Company Ltd. The country's very first ball bearing making factory!

By 1901 the company had perfected its mirror finished steel balls to such a level of accuracy they had earned world-wide-fame. From bearings for bicycles to motorcycles and then aeroplanes during the First World War, Hoffman bearings were everywhere. The company became so huge at its peak it had over 7,000 people working there!

And now, could we survive without ball bearings? well we have them in roller skates, skateboards, bicycle wheels, cars, trains, vacuum cleaners, typewriters, motorbikes, fishing rods, computer hard drives.......

"Wow! It's amazing what a little silver ball can do!"

Surrounded by all this new information, a table of clay, some watercolours and a whole bunch of wonderful sticky glueing materials, we set about designing our very own ball bearings!

bearings

Click on the image to see our Hoffman Bearing inspired artworks on flickr

Turning back Time

But wait, we need to get there! Engage imagination, search supplies, adopt a co-pilot, pop on the inventor specs and get creating...... !

We made Time Machines of every design, from square ones to round ones, from silver ones to multi-coloured ones. Gadgets, wires, dials, buttons and levers, beads, paper, card and sticky plastic. We even took time apart and explored the insides of mechanical clocks - using hands, cogs and the clock faces for our machines.


Then we tried them out and we travelled forwards in time to 3011 and even 9011 to see how the world has changed and if people lived on the moon, to 2020 to see what happened after the olympics, to 2012 to see if the world had ended, and we travelled forwards for short periods of time to see what we got for our birthdays.....!

and we travelled backwards in time, way way back to see if mulan really existed, to roman times to do some sneaky research for school work, to the middle ages to just soak in the atmosphere, to tudor times to see if they really did chop off peoples heads, and to when our grandparents were ten years old to find out what they were like as children
.

"Wow, this is fantastic, I can't believe we just made a Time Machine!"

Time Machines

Click on the image to see some amazing Time Machines on Flickr

Our Story Begins ....

In 2011, Class RB - that's a fab bunch of 9 and 10 year olds at Springfield Primary School - began a journey to discover happenings, places and people in their home town of Chelmsford, and this is their story........

Our story starts in a place inbetween two rivers right in the town, at the bottom of Springfield Road actually so its the place we arrive at in town directly if we travel from Springfield.
The space is a bit of a car park now but once upon a time it was known as Mesopotamia Island. So like its namesake the original Mesopotamia where began the 'cradle of civilisation', our story begins. (By the way the Mesopotamian's invented writing so you wouldn't be reading this if it wasn't for them....!)

We thought we'd start by designing our own nifty little maps of Chelmsford, so with enlarged sections of Google Earth we looked at the shapes and patterns the roads, rivers, houses and shops made and using colourful vinyl we created a new landscape - a sort of future mapping adventure.....

Future Map

Click on the image to see our amazing future maps on flickr