“This famous android was a collaborative effort by two Germans. Clockmaker Peter Kintzing created the mechanism and joiner David Roentgen crafted the cabinet; the dress dates from the 19th century. Automatons were in circulation and aroused much curiosity. Roentgen probably sent the tympanum to the French court and Marie-Antoinette bought it in 1784. The queen, aware of its perfection and scientific interest, had it deposited in the Academy of Sciences cabinet in 1785. The tympanum is a musical instrument that plays eight tunes when the female android strikes the 46 strings with two little hammers. Tradition has it that she is a depiction of Marie-Antoinette.”
It’s videos like these that just make me want to have a semi-regular “Science is even cooler than we ever realized it was!” segment in the classroom. This could be a good candidate for
- “[Teacher name]’s Believe It or Not!” (easily multi-subject)
- a “When did it happen?” science timeline guessing game, with other important technological achievements and historical markers on there for reference (like pin the tail on the donkey, but with one’s eyes open, and for the whole class)
- the perfect opportunity to introduce the class to science fiction with this as a writing prompt and conversation-starter
- interdisciplinary design-your-own projects, asking students to use this as inspiration for imagining their own arts-related technological marvel
- some serious discussion about science and innovation, why some things advance and others don’t as quickly, and what practicality, money, etc., have to do with it
- making your students’ jaws drop.
I would choose this over an iPhone any day.
This is an open comment to Tumblr dev/community staff - and I’m posting this on my Tumblr blog too.
I understand that you guys are hugely busy, and that in the grand scheme of things API support for community programmers is hardly a priority. We’re all devs here, I don’t think anyone expects constant interaction.
You’re absolutely right — we’ve been letting down our developer community. This is an extremely high-priority for Derek and me, and something that our Engineering team (especially JB) has been pulling extra hours to help with.
We don’t, today, have engineers dedicated to supporting our developer community — something we’re working to change as quickly as possible. You guys have been doing unbelievable work for Tumblr users, and we want to do everything possible to support your efforts.
Thank you so much for the thoughtful note. I’m sorry to let you down.
P.S. If empowering incredible developers is your kind of thing, we’d love to chat.
