The people who worked this out

The people who worked this out, in date order: the pile, the law, the coil, the filament, the wave, the transistor, the hopped signal, the chip. Every build on this board is one of their ideas, wired.

Every card opens on a build already on this board — see how each idea shows up in the Classroom.

  1. An illustration of Alessandro Volta 1800 Alessandro Volta The first battery, and the end of a long argument
  2. An illustration of Georg Simon Ohm 1827 Georg Simon Ohm The law that lets you calculate a circuit before you build it
  3. An illustration of Michael Faraday 1831 Michael Faraday A changing current in one coil makes a current in another
  4. An illustration of Thomas Edison 1879 Thomas Edison A filament that took thousands of tries to find, by a lab full of people
  5. An illustration of Lewis Latimer 1882 Lewis Latimer The filament that made the light bulb last
  6. An illustration of Heinrich Hertz 1887 Heinrich Hertz He made Maxwell’s waves and watched them cross a room
  7. An illustration of Nikola Tesla 1888 Nikola Tesla A motor that turns without a single spark inside it
  8. An illustration of Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil 1942 Hedy Lamarr and George Antheil A piano roll, a torpedo, and a patent nobody used for twenty years
  9. An illustration of Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley 1947 Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley The amplifier that replaced the valve, and the argument that followed
  10. An illustration of Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce 1958 Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce Two answers to the same problem, six months apart