Tech Tuesday is a place for all things technology. Here we will discuss both low tech and high tech thing-a-ma-jigs.
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| Image found here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7842085/Millions-ring-new-year-ball-drops-Times-Square.html |
The end of the year is a big thing, every single year. People make resolutions and look forward to a reset. I think that the end of 2020 is an even bigger thing. We have all joked about what a dumpster fire 2020 has been and we feel as if the change of the calendar year may be just what we need to change the crazy chaos we have been feeling this past year.
When the ball drops on New Years' Eve, I know it will bring many of you a sigh of relief and this is why today's post will be all about that ball. You have all heard of the ball, right? The big lighted sphere that drops every year in Times Square, in New York City? If not, where have you been? Anyway, I digress.
Ever think about why dropping a ball down a flag pole was something anyway? In the 1800s, time was important to the shipping industry and the navigation of ships. Captains aboard those ships relied on an instrument called a chronometer in order to calculate their positions. Often, these would be a little off, so a captain, Robert Wauchope, had the idea of a ball drop on shore to signify a certain time each day that would help nearby ships set their chronometers. Cities built these fancy timepieces and the ball drop idea began.
The actual ball drop in New York City to commemorate the new year first happened in 1907. The seven hundred pound, five foot diameter ball was made of wood and iron and had one hundred 25-watt incandescent bulbs attached to it. Artkraft Strauss, a sign company built it and for most of the 1900s the sign company was in charge of that ball.
In the 1920s the wood was replaced with iron, making a four hundred pound full iron ball. In 1955, that iron was replaced with aluminum. It was much lighter at one hundred and fifty pounds and had more lights, a total of one hundred and eighty.
The lights on the ball were traditionally white. But for a bit of time in the 1980s, it was red and had green lights on the top to represent an apple and the tourism ad theme of "The Big Apple."
In 1995, the ball got a makeover with added aluminum skin, twelve thousand rhinestones, new strobe lights with 180 halogen bulbs and computer control. The new tech ball only dropped a few times because of the changing of the millennium in 2000 and the need for an even more special ball that year.
The redesigned ball for ringing in 2000 was a Waterford Crystal and Phillips lighting collaboration. The new ball was made completely of crystal and had the latest of lighting technology, but again that ball didn't drop more than a few times because the ball was again redesigned in 2007.
2007 marked the one hundredth anniversary of the ball drop and it was definitely appropriate to again redesign the ball. The old halogen and incandescent bulbs were replaced with newer and brighter Phillips Luxeon LED lights. A total of 32,256 LEDs to be exact. There are now 2,688 Waterford Crystal triangles, which cover the twelve foot diameter ball. This high technology weighs in at about six tons and has a color palate of about sixteen million vibrant colors.
Up until 2008 the ball was set up and taken down each year, but it now is a permanent fixture at One Times Square atop a flagpole of The Times Building.
*If you would like to learn more about the history of the ball drop, I found lots of info here:
*I also found the wishing wall amazing. Here you can make New Years' wishes and they turn them into a piece of confetti to be rained down on New Years' Eve participants in Times Square. I wrote one for this year, but you will have to wait until next year. Read about it HERE.
