Techno Mum is taking part in an exciting new quiz show which is testing her knowledge about how some of the coolest new tech discoveries came about – in this episode the topic is COST.
Why is cost important in technology?
How much things cost is important to pretty much everyone!
If you get pocket money, you’ll be used to thinking about cost – things like, have I got enough pennies? Is what I want cheaper in a different shop?
When you’re shopping and there are two similar items, chances are you’ll go for the cheaper one!
So if you are making a new product, you need to make sure the price isn’t going to put people off!
But you also need to remember that products have a job to do – scrimp on your materials and it could all go wrong if your product breaks!
Cost can be a problem if you only want to make a small amount of anything, or if you want to make each one unique.
Whilst you can buy a poster of your favourite footballer or pop star fairly cheaply – they print large batches out at any one time, if you wanted someone to paint you a portrait… well that’s going to take longer and cost a lot more!
A cool innovation that’s helped engineers keep costs down:
The 3D PRINTER!
These can help make one off, unique items extremely cheaply. And you don’t need a lab, you can even get them for your home.
It’s a way of making three dimensional objects from a digital computer file. Layers of a special plastic are laid down to create the object. They’re now being used in medicine and space exploration!
A cool career that’s all about cost:
They check out different materials to see how well they’ll do the job – and the coolest thing of all is that they might even invent something totally new!
Materials Engineers are super important in getting the best, most cost effective materials for new inventions.
Tune in to hear Techno Mum’s Tech Trivia in The Club with Bex, every day at 5pm!
Techno Mum’s Tech Trivia – with the Institution of Engineering Technology!
