EOTO Technology presentations Blog Post 5

  One of the presentations that stood out to me the most was the history of the ballpoint pen. Through out history there has been several versions of writing tools that include metal nibs, feather quill pen, and much more. The ballpoint pen is the most effective writing tool other than the pencil. Laszlo Biro invented the ball point pen around 1938. His design was genius as it consisted of a tiny ball bearing at the tip of the pen that would rotated to release ink onto paper. At fist the pen wasn't easy to get a hold of and it was expensive. Nowadays you can purchase a whole back of ballpoint pens for less than ten dollars. Its really interesting to see the what price of what we consider expensive today will be in a hundred years.  

Mass production of the ballpoint pen started during World War II as the ink in these pens would last a long time. Before people would have to rely on filling pens with ink much more often. In a war situation time management is key and wasting time on filling a pen with ink wasn't very productive. In addition to these pens being much more time effective they also were very durable. Dropping a ballpoint pen which happens a lot won't do damage to it which made the pen an essential tool during the war.

 The reason why I chose to write my blog about the pen is because this was the only tool that was presented that had nothing to do with electrical technology. This made the ball point pen stand out to me. I never new that there was originally a ball that would rotate as you drag the pen across paper to release ink. I just assumed that friction would some how release the ink. I have lived with pens all of my life and I didn't realize how helpful they are until the presentations.