People have found ways to wash their cars ever since cars were invented. They either washed it themselves at home, or paid someone else to wash it by hand. Then, in 1914, two Detroit men opened the first car wash business, which they called the “Automated Laundry”, but it wasn’t really automated. It was basically a pail and sponge type of operation where the cars were pushed manually through an assembly-line-like tunnel, where one attendant would soap the car as it went past, another would rinse, and a third would dry. Of course, after pushing a few cars through, the attendants got pretty tired.

The first “automatic” conveyor car wash was opened in Hollywood, California—of course, where else—in 1940. Instead of manually pushing the cars through, this car wash had a winch system that hooked to the bumper and pulled the car through as men splashed away in the tunnel, soaping, scrubbing, wiping, and drying cars as they came through. By 1946, a man named Thomas Simpson is credited with inventing the first semiautomatic car wash system that took most of the manual labor out of the tunnel. It had a conveyor belt that hooked to the bumper of automobiles, an overhead water sprinkler with three sets of manually operated brushes, and a 50 HP air blower to help dry the car.

Then, in 1951, Archie, Dean and Eldon Anderson got the great idea to fully automate their car wash. As the story goes, the Anderson clan invented the completely hands-free automatic car wash in Seattle. Cars would be pulled through the tunnel and machines sprayed soap on them, big brushes scrubbed them, nozzles rinsed them, and giant blowers dried them. Needless to say, this was a big hit! Soon, many other car wash owners were installing automatic equipment in their car wash business.

Through the 1960’s, fully mechanized car washing systems were being installed across America. With conveyor car wash equipment advancing, the 60’s saw inventions such as recirculating water systems, soft cloth friction washing, roller on demand conveyor, and wraparound brush. By the late 60’s car washes were becoming a prominent industry worldwide with car washes being installed in many countries, including Japan.

Today’s car washes are literally cleaning machines. They not only wash all five sides of the car at once, but scrub tires and wash the undercarriage as well. They are more Eco-friendly, with milder soaps and lower water and electric requirements. Many of the newer car washes even have express tunnels that get your car through quickly, all of which leads to more clean cars and happier car owners.

Sources:

http://www.hannacarwash.com/index.php/about/history/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_wash

http://www.ehow.com/about_4565673_car-wash-businesses.html

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/business-plans/Business-Plans-Volume-07/Specialty-Car-Wash.html

http://ezinearticles.com/?Automatic-Car-Wash:-History-and-Evolution&id=7121485

Photos:

http://www.tustinmagazine.com/Best-Car-Wash.jpg

http://www.libertyfg.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/car-wash.jpg

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Leonardo was born on April 15, 1452, in Vinci, Italy, just outside of Florence. He was an illegitimate child, and when his mother married another man and moved to a neighboring town, Leonardo was left to be raised by his father. When he was fifteen, Leonardo became the apprentice of Andrea del Verrocchio in Florence, who owned one of the best artistic workshops of the time. There, he learned many of the crafts he would later use, such as drafting, chemistry, metallurgy, mechanics, painting, sculpting and modeling. Even as an apprentice, Leonardo demonstrated enormous talent, and by the time he was twenty, Leonardo qualified as a master in the Guild of St. Luke, the guild of artists and doctors of medicine.

Despite his talent, times were hard for artists, and even a master like Leonardo had to expand his clientele to make money. So, he adapted his drawing skills to the more lucrative fields of architecture, military engineering and weapons design. Leonardo landed a job working for the Duke of Milan for whom he developed ideas for weapons including missiles, multi-barreled machine guns, grenades, mortars and even a modern-style tank. As an architect, Leonardo proposed building a bridge to connect Istanbul across the Bosporus—a span of 720 feet. It was an outlandish vision at the time, and was ridiculed as impossible (ironically, modern engineers have determined that the bridge would have been completely feasible).

As it turns out, most of da Vinci’s inventions never made it to prototype in his lifetime, probably because he couldn’t convince one of his wealthy patrons to finance construction of his designs. Luckily for us, many of the sketches and diagrams of his inventions survived, and in the hundreds of years since, creative engineers have been able to not only build working prototypes of his designs, but also build practical machines based on his drawings. Inventions such as the parachute, the helicopter, underwater breathing devices and even a car that uses a spring-driven mechanism similar to that in a clock. And, believe it or not, it has been said that Leonardo actually built a working robot that he used primarily for entertainment at parties thrown by a wealthy patron.

Leonardo’s genius still resonates today, some 500 hundred years after his death. Books and movies such as The Da Vinci Code are widely popular, and a new television series, DaVinci’s Demons, is about to premier on the STARZ network. His art draws record crowds whenever it is exhibited and his scientific discoveries in the fields of anatomy, zoology, botany, geology, aerodynamics and hydrodynamics are staggering. But, it is his invention ideas that were so amazingly ahead of their time—such as the “flying machine”—which make it seem as if he could actually see the future. Leonardo da Vinci has been called the “smartest man that ever lived,” and considering all the amazing things he invented, we wholeheartedly agree.

Sources:

Photo 1: http://www.leonardodavinci.net/

Photo 2: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leonardo_da_Vinci_helicopter.jpg

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The birth of amateur radio starts, of course, with the invention of the radio. There are many contributors to the birth of radio; Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor, proved the feasibility of radio communication in Italy in 1895. However, Nikola Tesla was able to transmit signals from New York City to West Point and is credited with the first patent of radio technology. Some argue that these were just wireless transmission of Morse code, and that it was actually Ernst Alexanderson, a General Electric engineer, who built the first true radio which made voice radio broadcasts practical. The first broadcast took place on Christmas Eve, 1906, and was a Christmas story from the Bible while a violin played “Silent Night.”

No matter who gets the credit, one thing is clear; these first radio operators were the pioneers of amateur radio. In fact, by 1909, the first amateur radio club, The Junior Wireless Club, was organized in New York, later changing its name to the Radio Club of America. But, it was the sinking of the RMS Titanic on April 15, 1912 that prompted new international radio laws which also affect amateur radio, including frequency restrictions and operating procedures. That’s because in those early days, everybody occupied any wavelength they wanted, so Government stations, ships, coastal stations and the increasingly numerous amateur operators all competed for time and signal supremacy in each other’s receivers.

Governments stepped in to regulate technical and operational characteristics of transmissions and issue individual stations licenses with an identifying call sign. Regulations also designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication. For instance, it prohibited amateurs from transmitting over the main commercial and military wavelengths and limited their transmitting signals below a wavelength of 200 meters (or “short waves”).

So today the term “amateur” is used to specify persons interested in radio solely for personal use and without any financial interest. It also distinguishs it from commercial broadcasting, public safety (such as police and fire), or professional two-way radio services (such as maritime, aviation, taxis, etc.). And that term “ham operator” – that was used as a derogatory word by professional radio people to mean “incompetent”, like a ham actor. The funny thing is that the “ham” radio folks took to the name and now love being called “hams” – just not with cheese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio

http://blog.conduit.com/2010/04/08/april-international-amateur-radio-month/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-17582767

http://inventors.about.com/od/rstartinventions/a/radio.htm

http://ac6v.com/history.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Act_of_1912

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