Books about pneumatic tubes...for kids
October 4, 2022 7:07 PM Subscribe
My 5th grader is doing a project on pneumatic tubes, like the ones in banks and hospitals. Are there books on pneumatic tube systems for kids? Please? Pretty please?
Magazine articles or books written for an older audience that we could work through together could also be good.
Magazine articles or books written for an older audience that we could work through together could also be good.
Best answer: New York's first air train
Mobility: from there to here
The motorboat book : build & launch 20 jet boats, paddle-wheelers, electric submarines & more (available for free online)
The way things work. Pressure
The power of pressure
Fluid power : hydraulics and pneumatics
The website Pneumatic.Tube - unique in its kind - is an online or virtual museum. Here you will find technical, historical and comical information about the past, the present and the possible future of the pneumatic tube system. Hopefully through this website, the long life of the pneumatic tubes transport technology won't be forgotten!
Pneumatic Mail
Pneumatic Tubes: Transportation of the Past... And Future?
posted by oceano at 9:35 PM on October 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
Mobility: from there to here
The motorboat book : build & launch 20 jet boats, paddle-wheelers, electric submarines & more (available for free online)
The way things work. Pressure
The power of pressure
Fluid power : hydraulics and pneumatics
The website Pneumatic.Tube - unique in its kind - is an online or virtual museum. Here you will find technical, historical and comical information about the past, the present and the possible future of the pneumatic tube system. Hopefully through this website, the long life of the pneumatic tubes transport technology won't be forgotten!
Pneumatic Mail
Pneumatic Tubes: Transportation of the Past... And Future?
posted by oceano at 9:35 PM on October 4, 2022 [3 favorites]
The pneumatic tube's strange 150-year journey
using search term hyperloop:
STEAM guides in transportation
Unconventional vehicles : forty-five of the strangest cars, trains, planes, submersibles, dirigibles, and rockets ever
21st century trains
Travel technology : maglev trains, hovercrafts, and more
How super cool stuff works
posted by oceano at 9:46 PM on October 4, 2022
using search term hyperloop:
STEAM guides in transportation
Unconventional vehicles : forty-five of the strangest cars, trains, planes, submersibles, dirigibles, and rockets ever
21st century trains
Travel technology : maglev trains, hovercrafts, and more
How super cool stuff works
posted by oceano at 9:46 PM on October 4, 2022
Best answer: The Pneumatic Tube Mail System in New York City
Pneumatic Mail Tubes pdf linked here:
Making Fun: Tooth Fairy Tooth Transport
Hammarby Sjöstad: A New Generation of Sustainable Urban Eco-Districts
The Hyperloop Will Be Only the Latest Innovation That’s Pretty Much a Series of Tubes
Check with your library for access to these:
Aron, J. (2013). Newmatics. New Scientist, 219(2930), 36–37.
WALLACE, B. (2016). A Kink in the Hyperloop. New York, 49(21), 46–52.
Spingarn-Koff, J. (2009). Where Pneumatic Tubes Rule. TIME Magazine, 174(8), 49
COURAGE, K. H. (2020). Subway to Nowhere. Scientific American, 323(3), 49.
Vlahos, J. (2015). Hyped up. Popular Science, 287(1), 32–39.
posted by oceano at 10:26 PM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Pneumatic Mail Tubes pdf linked here:
Making Fun: Tooth Fairy Tooth Transport
Hammarby Sjöstad: A New Generation of Sustainable Urban Eco-Districts
The Hyperloop Will Be Only the Latest Innovation That’s Pretty Much a Series of Tubes
Check with your library for access to these:
Aron, J. (2013). Newmatics. New Scientist, 219(2930), 36–37.
WALLACE, B. (2016). A Kink in the Hyperloop. New York, 49(21), 46–52.
Spingarn-Koff, J. (2009). Where Pneumatic Tubes Rule. TIME Magazine, 174(8), 49
COURAGE, K. H. (2020). Subway to Nowhere. Scientific American, 323(3), 49.
Vlahos, J. (2015). Hyped up. Popular Science, 287(1), 32–39.
posted by oceano at 10:26 PM on October 4, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: This is one of the things I research (I am an architectural & technology historian) -- and I'm working on a live documentary lecture about them with Jesse Chandler, who records under the name Pneumatic Tubes! We'll be performing it live early next year. (How cool is it to collaborate on pneumatic tubes WITH Pneumatic Tubes?) -- in the meantime...
Here's my interview with 99% Invisible about pneumatic tubes (2011)
My article in Cabinet, "Interfaces to the Subterranean"
The massively popular Ignite talk I gave in 2009 about them that went viral
My nonfiction essay in the Missouri Review about pneumatic tubes, the early World Wide Web, and childhod
A longer keynote talk at QCon about pneumatic tubes from 2019
posted by maximolly at 6:59 AM on October 5, 2022 [12 favorites]
Here's my interview with 99% Invisible about pneumatic tubes (2011)
My article in Cabinet, "Interfaces to the Subterranean"
The massively popular Ignite talk I gave in 2009 about them that went viral
My nonfiction essay in the Missouri Review about pneumatic tubes, the early World Wide Web, and childhod
A longer keynote talk at QCon about pneumatic tubes from 2019
posted by maximolly at 6:59 AM on October 5, 2022 [12 favorites]
(Yay, maximolly answered!!!)
posted by wenestvedt at 9:16 AM on October 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 9:16 AM on October 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Pneumatic tubes are often thought of as ancient, obsolete technology but they are still in use in hospitals. The hospital I work at just built a new building with a new, state-of-the-art tube system in it. This is our third system. They are primarily used to send samples from the clinics to the labs.
This is the website for the company that makes it. Perhaps browsing it will help your child. There are logs of diagrams and videos available.
posted by bondcliff at 7:37 AM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is the website for the company that makes it. Perhaps browsing it will help your child. There are logs of diagrams and videos available.
posted by bondcliff at 7:37 AM on October 13, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is so funny. It doesn't really help you with your child's project, but...
My kids, now teenagers, are really into "caper" movies and TV shows, stuff like Ocean's 11 and The Italian Job. And so for the last year or two we've been working our way through the old USA Network show White Collar.
Last night we watched the final episode... and it's built around a major heist that hinges on a pneumatic tube!
It's a fun show, and worth watching the whole way through (for Matt Bomer, some incredibly nice suits and great NYC scenery, if nothing else. Willie Garson and TimDeKay are pretty great too), but you could probably watch the episode just for the tubes and have fun. Only one violent scene near the end, after the caper. Just bail out at the obvious point.
posted by martin q blank at 12:04 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
My kids, now teenagers, are really into "caper" movies and TV shows, stuff like Ocean's 11 and The Italian Job. And so for the last year or two we've been working our way through the old USA Network show White Collar.
Last night we watched the final episode... and it's built around a major heist that hinges on a pneumatic tube!
It's a fun show, and worth watching the whole way through (for Matt Bomer, some incredibly nice suits and great NYC scenery, if nothing else. Willie Garson and TimDeKay are pretty great too), but you could probably watch the episode just for the tubes and have fun. Only one violent scene near the end, after the caper. Just bail out at the obvious point.
posted by martin q blank at 12:04 PM on October 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
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