Today we see wealthy entrepreneurs funding research to cure or eradicate diseases (e.g. Bill Gates with malaria and polio) or to explore space (Elon Musk and SpaceX). In the WWII-era, there was a wealthy entrepreneur and self-trained physicist who did the same, but he is pretty unknown today.
Alfred Lee Loomis was born to wealthy parents in Manhattan in 1887. His parents separated when he was young, and his father died while he was at Yale studying math and science. His cousin Henry Stimson, who served in presidential cabinets from Taft to Truman, was an older mentor to him. Loomis graduated from Harvard Law School in 1912 and joined a prominent corporate law firm. He did very well at the firm but was not overly excited by the work. When the US entered World War I, Loomis joined and was made captain–he was assigned to the Aberdeen proving ground. While there he devised a device to measure the velocity of ballistics leaving a muzzle. He worked alongside scientists who helped him develop his interest in experimenting in theoretical and practical physics.
After the war Loomis didn’t return to the law but began investment banking. With a partner he developed the concept of holding companies and consolidated electric utility companies, developing power infrastructure on the East Coast. Much of his practice would be deemed insider trading under today’s regulations. In 1928 Loomis believed that the stock market was very overvalued and removed his money and his firms’ capital from the market, converting it to cash. After the crash they reinvested in stocks while their price was very low–his wealth increased exponentially at a time when many people lost all theirs.
Loomis used his wealth to pursue his scientific interests, and to support other science research. In particular, as the 1930’s progressed, he began to support the development of technologies that might support a US war industry. He developed a large lab complex near his mansion in Tuxedo Park in New York. The work there focused on brain waves, and electromagnetic waves.
By 1940, Loomis was very focused on preparation for the coming war. In the absence of government funding of important research, he decided to step in. He opened a new lab on the campus of MIT. Hoping for some obfuscation, he named it The Radiation Lab, hoping to confuse it with the new Radiation Lab at UC Berkeley, run by Ernest Lawrence. Although funded by Loomis, the lab operated under first the National Defense Research Committee, and then later the Office of Scientific Research and Development, in both cases directed by Vannevar Bush.
The ‘Rad Lab’ as it was called, focused on parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that could be used to transmit and receive information. When the Tizard Mission sent British technology and research results to the US, they went to the Rad Lab. They used magnetrons to create high energy waves and developed new radar technology as a result. The 10 cm radar that resulted from this research was used in planes and ships and military bases throughout the war. Nine scientists from the Rad Lab went on to receive Nobel Awards.
After World War II the Rad Lab closed, and its operations, still funded by the government, became part of the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. Loomis was always a very private man, and preferred to operate in the background. In 1945 he divorced his wife, who was suffering from dementia, and remarried. There was a huge society scandal as a result. Loomis sold his properties and led a quiet domestic life until he died in 1975. He refused to give interviews. Perhaps this is why his story, and the story of the Radiation Lab, is little-known.
The original cavity magnetron that came from England to the US. From Wikimedia Commons.
Loomis, at the far right, is in very good company-Ernest Lawrence, Arthur Compton, Vannevar Bush, James Conant, and Karl Compton. From Wikimedia Commons.
Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.
The theme of the 4th Annual National WWII Robotics Challenge was Can Do! That was the motto of the Seabees in World War II. The Seabees (officially they were the United States Naval Construction Force) built bases, airstrips, and all sorts of things, especially in the Pacific Theater. Their nickname came from the fact that they were organized in Construction Battalions. Their average age was older than most of the military, because these were experienced construction workers and working engineers given this special assignment.
The war in the Pacific, which is the focus of The National WWII Museum’s newest gallery, The Road to Tokyo, held many challenges. The volcanic islands, the vast expanses of ocean between them, the lack of infrastructure (or the destroyed infrastructure), volcanoes and earthquakes–all made the logistics of this campaign a great challenge. Robotics was not really a part of World War II, but solving problems by extending the abilities of current technology was. Today, robotics is a great way to extend the abilities of technology, and it is a way to engage young people in learning to solve problems with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).
The Robotics Challenge has two parts–A Design Project and the Robot Competition–and involves teams of up to 10 3rd-8th grade students.
In the Robot Competition, students use Lego Mindstorms robots to accomplish a series of tasks. They program their robot to complete as many tasks as it can in 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This year the tasks included moving ships to a harbor, crossing the equator, and fighting malaria. The tasks use models and analogies to teach the history of WWII at the same time as they teach programming and problem-solving skills.
The Design Project this year asked students to design a Rhino Ferry with a limited range of supplies. Rhino Ferries were pontoons, basically sections of pontoon bridges or harbors, with engines on them. They had to test and redesign until they came up with a final design, and to propose a cost and construction plan. This project helps build student skills in STEM that might not be used as much in the competition.
We wouldn’t have been able to have had a successful challenge without the help of a dedicated and enthusiastic team of volunteers, who assisted The National WWII Museum’s Education staff in running this event. In particular, Chevron (which also provided major funding for the challenge) sent many volunteers. The robotics team from Fontainebleu High School served as referees, and this was a crucial assist.
Forty teams participated in the 2016 Robotics Challenge–36 made it to Challenge Day. I think all of us AND all of them are winners, since we are preparing these youngsters for the future. The winners in each category of awards are listed below.
Rhino Ferry Project
Gretna No. 2–Barrow’s Bravehearts
Phyllis Wheatley–761st Tank Division
St. George Episcopal–Higgin’s Heroes
Robot Design and Process
After the Bell Robotics–Legotrons
Madisonville Jr High
Faith Christian Academy
Robotics Competition
TIE Patrick Taylor Academy–TIE Fighters and Central Alabama Community College–Legonators
Faith Christian Academy
Girl Scouts of Louisiana East–The B7 Teens
Special Award
Metairie Park Country Day School–The CDs (outstanding work by a very young team)
Grand Champions
Girl Scouts of Louisiana East–The B7 Teens (all around excellence and amazing teamwork)
Team members running the robot had to stay cool under pressure.
Students watch their robot track its way across the mat.
There was some anxiety during the competition.
The B7 Teens of Girl Scouts Louisiana East had excellent results in project and competition, and worked hard to keep everyone on the team involved.
Gretna No. 2 did an amazing job with their pontoon ferry
Metairie Park Country Day's CD's are all 3rd and 4th graders
Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.
On September 1, 1923 at 11:58 AM an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.9 occurred in a bay just south of Tokyo. Tokyo and Yokohama, a relatively young port city with a strong international influence, were the closest large population centers. After the earthquake a tsunami with an 11 meter high crest hit Yokohama and surrounding areas. Fires spread throughout Tokyo and Yokohama, and with water mains broken by the quake there was no way to fight them. The earthquake led to a 2 meter uplift on the coast, and a 4.5 meter horizontal displacement of land. Even though it lasted only 14 seconds, it was a huge amount of energy released. 570, 000 homes were destroyed, and more than 140,000 people were killed. With telegraph technology connected to radio, news from Japan to the countries of the West moved rapidly. The US and other countries mobilized support for victims of the earthquake within 24 hours.
Japan had annexed Korea more than a decade earlier, and, in the months before what came to be called the Great Kanto Earthquake, a group working for the liberation of Korea had been conducting terrorist attacks. Rumors spread in the aftermath of the quake that Koreans were looting and starting fires. Violent attacks on Koreans, and anyone thought to be Korean, followed. The government tried to protect Koreans, but also covered up any attacks that occurred.
This event, and Japan’s dependence upon the West for support in recovery, fueled growing nationalism. The expansion of Japanese influence and the later war in the Pacific can be traced in part to this earthquake in 1923.
Earthquakes were, and still are, common in that part of the Pacific. So are volcanoes. These geological factors shaped the islands, and when US troops fought there in WWII these conditions shaped logistics, and even the path of the war.
There is a diamond shaped continental plate—the Philippine plate-pinned between the much larger Pacific and Eurasian plates. The Pacific plate is moving slowly but relentlessly west, pushing the Philippine plate ahead of it. Where the plates meet the Pacific sinks below both the Philippine and Eurasian plates, and the Philippine plate dives under the Eurasian plate. This pattern of plate convergence is called subduction, and leads to earthquakes and volcanoes. Where the plates come together in the ocean they form volcanoes which can emerge from the ocean, creating islands. From New Guinea to the Marianas and Iwo Jima (on the east side, between the Philippine and Pacific plates), from the Philippines to Okinawa and up (on the west side, between the Eurasian and Philippine plates) to Japan (split by the Eurasian and Pacific plates), all those islands are formed from volcanic activity. Some of those islands are very old, mostly dead, volcanoes, and the coral reefs that surround them (like Tinian, or the Bikini atoll). Others are younger, and form very high tropical peaks (like in the Philippines). Iwo Jima, which in its original Japanese name means ‘sulfur island,’ was formed by slightly different volcanic activity that led to its peculiar geography. There is abundant groundwater on Iwo Jima, all of it very hot and enriched in minerals. The frequent volcanic activity there is mostly steam created by the interaction of groundwater and magma (molten rock).
The geological theory that explained volcanoes and earthquake patterns, called Plate Tectonics, wasn’t solidified until the late 1960s. So troops went into this zone, where there were more than two dozen large earthquakes (> 6.0) between 1940 and 1946, without any way to predict what was going on, or any understanding of what each stop on the island-hopping path to Tokyo would bring.
Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.
This very famous landmark in Japan was moved 2 m and its base destroyed by the 1923 earthquake. From Wikimedia commons
An aerial view of Iwo Jima from the opposite side, after the battle. From the collection of the NWWII Museum
A look inside Mt Suribachi, the large volcano on Iwo Jima. From the collection of the NWWII Museum
An aerial view of Iwo Jima with landing craft ready for invasion. From the collection of the NWWII Museum
The headline of the NY Times reports on the Great Kanto Earthquake, and also foreshadows developments in Europe
One of the undersold stories of the Allied victory in WWII is logistics. Thousands of planes and millions of men, and countless tons of supplies made their way across large oceans to the battle fronts. Much of what and who made its way to Europe went by way of what might seem a strange set of hops across the North Atlantic. From Eastern Canada, to Greenland, to Iceland and then to Scotland, newly built airfields accommodated a great traffic moving mostly eastward.
Preparation for this effort began even before the US entered the war. The Destroyers for Bases agreement provided the beginning of this process. In May 1941 US troops from the First Air Force 21st Reconnaissance Squadron arrived in Canada. With them was Captain Elliott Roosevelt, the president’s son, who made surveys in Canada that led to several bases built there, and eventually to bases and airfields in Greenland and Iceland.
The curvature of the Earth, the Earth’s rotation, and prevailing winds make this North Atlantic route a relatively efficient path from North America to Europe. However, when it started use in Spring of 1942, losses were at about 10%. Winter weather over the North Atlantic is treacherous, and even in Summer it can be risky. Today planes fly the route at 30,000-40,000 feet, aided in their Eastward path by the jet stream. Decades ago the planes didn’t often reach those altitudes, and winds were more a hindrance than an aide. The National WWII Museum displays a B-17 named My Gal Sal in the US Freedom Pavilion: The Boeing Center. This plane made an emergency landing on the ice of Greenland when forced down in bad weather during one of the early flights on the North Atlantic route.
The development of the route led the US to explore Greenland, and purge the German troops thinly scattered across it. They were maintaining weather stations on the Greenland ice, and making forays into the seas to disrupt shipping. Eventually the US made its own weather stations and bases there, including three important airfields. These locations maintain their strategic importance today.
Air transport also took a route East across the Mid-Atlantic. This route was much longer, but less at risk from poor weather. Planes equipped with extra fuel tanks left southern Florida for Bermuda, stopping in the Azores before heading to Cornwall.
Great Britain had maintained troops and bases in Iceland for a few years by this team, in an uneasy relationship with the Iceland government. The US took over these operations in July of 1941, under an agreement with the government of Denmark. Construction on new airstrips was undertaken by both the Army Corps of Engineers and the Navy Seabees, and all bases were completed by late Summer of 1943.
The airfield at Reykjavik was turned over to the Icelandic government after the war and became a civilian airport. The base and airfield at Keflavik (formerly Meeks) became an important strategic part of NATO’s plans during the Cold War.
Today the North Atlantic route is highly regulated and one of the busiest corridors for air traffic in the world. Pioneered by very young pilots in the 1940s who couldn’t take advantage of all its benefits, the flyway today binds continents together today with primarily economic, and not military, exchanges.
Two Coast Guard planes patrolling the coast of Greenland. The Coast Guard did much of the surveying and securing of the giant island. From the collection of The National WWII Museum.
A Coast Guard ice breaker patrolling the coast of Greenland. The Coast Guard did much of the surveying and securing of the giant island. From the collection of The National WWII Museum.
A Chaplain outside his barracks at a base in Iceland during WWII. From the collection of The National WWII Museum.
A waterfall in Iceland near Meeks base. From the collection of The National WWII Museum.
A period map of the routes used to transport by air in WWII. From Wikimedia Commons.
Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.
Seventy one years ago, as the Allies advanced towards Berlin, the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the U.S. began. Experts from the U.S. scoured seized records and interrogated captured scientists beginning in the autumn of 1944. As the Soviets advanced from the east, their military did the same.
As far back as the Alsos Mission, which corresponded to the Allied invasion of Italy, the U.S. systematically captured documents and personnel involved in Axis technology. Physicists captured included Otto Hahn (co-discoverer of fission) and Werner Heisenberg. Kurt Blome, who developed biological weapons for the Nazis and tested Sarin and other agents on prisoners was acquitted at Nuremberg because of the assistance he gave the Allies. Eugen Haagen, who experimented with contagious diseases on prisoners was not treated quite as lightly but was also spared the gallows.
As the Germans began to lose the war on the eastern front, the Nazis recalled many scientists and engineers serving ordinary duties and set them to finding technological breakthroughs that might quickly turn the tide of the war. A list assembled by the head of the Military Research Association, Wernher Osenberg, was found by U.S. intelligence stuffed in a toilet at recently captured Bonn University in 1945. This list was used to target scientists for capture and interrogation. Wernher von Braun was at the head of the list. He had led development of rockets, based on the Baltic coast at Peenemunde. There he used slave labor to build the facility and the rockets, and thousands of prisoners died in the development and deployment of the V-1 and V-2 rockets.
In the end more than 1,500 Germans with scientific and technical expertise were brought to the U.S. for employment after the war. Many of them were housed at captured European resorts before being removed with their families across the Atlantic. President Truman’s order to approve of what came to be known as Operation Paperclip came in August of 1945. This order excluded anyone who was a member of the Nazi party and any more than a nominal supporter of its activities. This would have excluded nearly all the scientists and engineers on the intelligence recruitment lists, many of whom were earlier classified as threats to security of the Allied forces.
Wernher von Braun and many others (more than 100) with expertise in rocket science were brought to Fort Bliss in Texas. Von Braun was allowed to return to Germany in 1947 (when he was 46 years old) in order to meet, and marry, his 18 year old cousin, Maria. He eventually became an Evangelical Christian, complained about his research budget, and became a U.S. citizen in 1955.
Peenemunde, where the Germans developed and deployed long-range rockets on the Baltic coast. From Wikimedia Commons
von Braun giving a talk about space exploration at Disney studios. From NASA.
Peenemunde, where the Germans developed and deployed long-range rockets on the Baltic coast, after severe bombing. From Wikimedia Commons.
Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.
This Saturday, March 19, would be the 115th birthday of John Baker, the British engineer who was given the title Baron and an award of 3,000 pounds (worth about 92,000 pounds in today’s valuation) for his design of an air raid shelter during WWII.
It is hard for us in the US to imagine how hard the Battle of Britain was on the struggling country. Between September 7, 1940 and May 21, 1941, the Luftwaffe dropped over 100 million tons of bombs on English cities. London was bombed the most, on average one of every 3 nights over 8 months. About 43,000 civilians were killed in those months, and about 3 times as many were wounded.
John Baker was an engineering professor at Bristol University when he designed the Morrison shelter, named after the presiding Minister of Home Security. Many Londoners had no space in which to place an in-ground structure, so Baker used his plastic theory of structural analysis to build a lightweight shelter that could be used in homes. With over 300 parts requiring 3 different tools to assemble, it was complicated, and the government provided them free to city-dwellers who earned less than 400 pounds a year. 500,000 Morrison shelters were distributed by 1942, and another 100,000 in 1943 in preparation for the German V-1 campaign. A study of a sample of bombed homes estimated that over 85% of the occupants had survived without serious injury.
Anderson shelters were used instead of Morrison shelters in places where residents could bury them underground. Made of galvanized steel formed into an arch, they could hold up to six people, while a Morrison shelter only held a pair of supine inhabitants. They were provided free to householders with an income under 300 pounds per year, and subsidized at a cost of 7 pounds to anyone with a higher income. About 2.1 million Anderson shelters were built during the war.
Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.
all images from Wikimedia Commons
An Anderson shelter that served as a shed for many years after the war.
A Morrison shelter with a couple demonstrating its proper use.
On March 3, 1941, Forrest Mars received a patent for the most popular and long-lasting WWII invention: sugar coating milk chocolate to make a candy. He got the idea from a confection named ‘Smarties,’ which Forrest saw soldiers in England eating. The hard exterior kept the chocolate from melting and making a mess when it warmed in a pocket or hand. Do not mistake British ‘Smarties’ with American ‘Smarties’—they are completely differently delicious.
Forrest Mars was the son of Frank C Mars, the founder of Mars Company. Forrest and his business partner Bruce Murrie (who was the son of the president of Hershey Chocolate) began production of the candies at a factory in Newark, New Jersey in 1941, naming their company M&M (using their last initials). Chocolate was rationed at the time, and the partnership allowed the fledgling company to use Hershey’s monopolized chocolate. In later years as Forrest Mars took the helm of his father’s company (and eventually became Forrest Mars Sr), he bought the Murrie share of the company and folded it into Mars.
The candies, which came in a cylindrical tube, became a staple of rations for soldiers, and the company moved production to a bigger factory in Hackettstown. Although the candies were made in great volume, they were only available as part of military rations until throughout the war. The iconic ‘M’ printed on each candy didn’t come until 1950, and at first was printed in black.
The first M&Ms came in 5 colors—brown, yellow, green, red and violet. Forrest Mars also invented the Mars bar (1932) based on the Milky Way (1923) introduced by his father. It’s a sweet story.
All images from the collection of the National WWII Museum
Violet was an original M & Ms color
Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.
Are you, or do you know, a science teacher of students in 5th-8th grades? We are looking for members for the 2016 Real World Science Cohort. Spend a week at our museum, learning all about how to teach hands-on science with connections to history and literacy. Apply now–applications accepted until March 4, 2016.
Sausage casings, juice cans, and a washing machine were key components of the first artificial kidney. The dedication, inventiveness, and courage of a doctor under Nazi occupation were important too.
Willem Kolff was a young Dutch physician who read, in the late 1930s, of research done in 1913 by John Abel at Johns Hopkins University. Abel had conducted some animal studies on hemodialysis, and Kolff thought he could use similar methods in his practice. By the time Kolff was making progress, the Germans occupied the Netherlands, and he was sent to work in a rural hospital.
Forging documents, and pressing his wife and colleagues to help him continue his investigations, Kolff constructed the first drum dialyzer. He treated many patients with failing kidneys unsuccessfully until he managed to revive a comatose 67 year old woman whose kidneys were not working.
Drum dialyzers work by filtering the blood with an artificial membrane rotating around a cylinder. The device Abel tested on animals used vegetable parchment coated with egg albumin to filter blood, and an extract of leeches to prevent coagulation. Kolff’s original device used sausage casing as a membrane, and after the war he used cellophane tubing. He used heparin to reduce coagulation.
During the war Kolff managed to make 5 dialysis machines, and at the war’s end he donated them to hospitals around the world, eschewing patent rights in the hope that others would help him improve treatment for kidney failure.
He accompanied one of the machines to Mt Sinai hospital in NY, where some medical staff were horrified by the thought of treating blood outside the body. With a researcher at Brigham Hospital in Boston, he developed the Kolff-Brigham dialyzer, made of stainless steel—a big improvement from used cans and sausage skins.
The Kolff-Brigham dialyzer was used to save many soldiers in the Korean War, and Kolff continued to work on dialysis and artificial organs for his whole life. Willem Kolff was born Feb 14, 1911, and died Feb 11, 2009.
Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.
Are you, or do you know, a science teacher of students in 5th-8th grades? We are looking for members for the 2016 Real World Science Cohort. Spend a week at our museum, learning all about how to teach hands-on science with connections to history and literacy. Apply now–applications accepted until March 4, 2016.
An early aerosol can of DDT insecticide (from Wikimedia Commons).
With millions of troops moving into tropical and subtropical campaigns, WWII military leaders and planners sought ways to fight diseases endemic to these regions. Two WWII era innovations were combined to save the lives of many combatants during the war years. Malaria was the primary concern at the time.
Malaria was commonly avoided by prophylactic treatments with quinine. Larger doses could be given to those known to be infected. Quinine came from the bark of a South American shrub that came to be grown on commercial plantations in the South Pacific. The Japanese occupied these plantations early in the war, and substitutes for it were less effective.
In 1939, Paul Hermann Muller discovered that dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) effectively killed insects. He began searching for a chemical insecticide in 1935, spurred by agricultural insect pests and an outbreak of typhus. After testing 349 compounds over 4 years (that’s persistence!) Muller found one that worked. In 1943 tests showed it to be effective against the mosquitoes that carried malaria, and the US Military started using it. At first they used hand pumps that pressurized a canister, and applying DDT this way replaced spraying fuel oil in streams and ditches. In 1948 Muller received the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for his discovery.
USDA researchers Lyle Goodhue and William Sullivan developed the first effective aerosol spray can in 1941. There were earlier patents for aerosol spray, but no one had yet made an effective disposable canister. Goodhue and Sullivan were looking for ways to spray insecticides, and found a way to compress chlorofluorocarbon gases in a can with the chemical to be dispersed. With a valve at the top that controlled emission of the contents, the active chemical was carried by the expanding carrier gas.
A US Soldier in Italy early in the war, spraying oil from a hand-pumped canister into a ditch to kill mosquitoes (from the collection of The National WWII Museum).
Combining DDT with a working disposable aerosol can, the US military was able to give its troops a way to spray inside tents, nets and clothes to kill mosquitoes (and just about all the other insects that came in contact). DDT helped cut down malarial and other vector-borne disease in the war, and soon eradicated malaria from North America and southern Europe.
DDT was less effective at killing malarial mosquitoes in Africa and other tropical areas where they breed year-round, and eventually the insects developed immunity. Later it was discovered that DDT was causing mortality in birds, and could act as a potent endocrine disruptor. DDT is a very stable chemical and breaks down very slowly, staying in the environment for a long time. In the early 1970s DDT’s use in the US was heavily restricted, and remains so.
In the 1970s scientists showed that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) used in aerosol cans and refrigeration, were causing a degradation of the ozone layer in the atmosphere. Ozone is a toxic pollutant at ground levels, but a concentrated layer of ozone high in the atmosphere shields the Earth’s surface from a large amount of ultra-violet radiation from the sun. Regulations in the US and around the world phased out the use of CFCs as propellants first, and then as refrigerants, by the late 1980s. Metal spray cans are more rare now, but they dominated the shelves of stores for many decades of the 20th century.
A soldier being sprayed with DDT from a pump-pressurized canister in WWII (from Wikimedia Commons).
DDT and aerosol cans served their important purpose in WWII, but were eventually dropped as technologies because of unintended consequences of their use. This is a common occurrence in the history of engineering and innovation.
Posted by Rob Wallace, STEM Education Coordinator at The National WWII Museum.
Robotics wasn’t a big part of WWII, but the foundations of the field were there:
-In Operations Aphrodite and Anvil, older bombers were packed with explosives, piloted into the air, and then controlled from the ground by radio control and remote video to be aimed at bunkers and military installations in German territory. The operations were not particularly successful and soon discontinued. Many of the planes were lost to flak, or control problems. Joseph Kennedy Jr, future President John F Kennedy’s brother, was killed piloting a plan in one of these missions.
-Japanese engineers designed fire bombs carried by large weather balloons that carried them across the Pacific Ocean. They had pressure regulators that inflated or deflated the balloons according to altitude. The bombs were mostly not successful at causing anything other than a few small forest fires.
-The Norden Bomb Sight controlled the flight of bomber to keep it on course to hit the target selected by the bombardier. The Norden had a poor practical accuracy (it hit within about 2,400 feet of its target) because the values the crew had to put into its computer for airspeed and altitude and wind direction were often inaccurate.
-Both the Army and the Navy used target drones produced by a company owned by actor Reginald Denny. These radio-controlled aircraft were originally designed by Walter Righter, and were launched by catapult. The radio controller was manufactured by Bendix, and the planes were made at a plant on the Van Nuys CA airport. A photographer visiting the plant made one of it’s woman workers (Norma Jeane Dougherty) famous. These were very successful drones, but that’s because they were made for target practice.
So why does the National WWII Museum have a Robotics Challenge?
Today drones are in the news daily, as are autonomous cars and all sorts of other robots. By targeting robotics, we hope to encourage a new generation of technology innovators. They learn practical skills like building and coding and troubleshooting, and the principles of teamwork, creativity, and persistence that are as important today as they were for the STEM professionals who worked for victory in WWII.
Our Robotics Challenge highlights parts of the history of WWII, while challenging today’s students to apply the values and characteristics that helped us win the war to problems today.
