Lesson Planning

Compare Babbage’s  ‘Difference Engine’ with a modern calculator. Make a junk model ‘function machine’.

Teaching Outcomes
To find out about Charles Babbage’s ‘Difference Engine’ and compare it with a modern calculator.
To design, build and decorate a ‘function machine’.
To create at least one function for a machine, changing a range of input numbers using a precisely defined operation.

Children will:

• Ask questions about Babbage’s ‘difference engine’, comparing it with a modern calculator.
• Make a ‘function machine’ using junk modelling.
• Write input and output numbers for different machine functions.