Simple Machines Unit: Simple Machines Lesson 10 – Up and Down in Elevators

Elevators

Vocabulary

Read the vocabulary terms to understand the reading better.

Call Buttons

Call buttons are the two buttons outside an elevator door to go up or down.

Control Panel

A control panel has buttons with numbers inside the elevator to choose the floor you want to go to.

Elevator

An elevator is a little room that goes up and down floors to carry people from one level to another.

Floor Display

A floor display is inside the elevator that tells what floor the elevator is on.

Machine

A machine is a device that does a specific physical task. Machines need energy to work.

Elevators move people up and down in a building. An elevator is faster than using stairs. It makes work and life easier.

There were no elevators long ago. People did not build very tall buildings. It would take too long to climb stairs up a tall building. People would get tired.

Elevators were invented more than 150 years ago. Then people started to build very tall buildings. They put elevators in the buildings.

Outside an Elevator

There are two buttons outside an elevator door. They are called call buttons.

Press the top button if you want to go up. Press the bottom button if you want to go down. Soon the elevator doors will open.

Let people come out of the elevator before you go in.

Inside an Elevator

There is a control panel inside the elevator. The control panel has buttons with numbers.

Press the number of the floor you want to go to. The door will close. Then the elevator will start to move.

The control panel also has elevator door buttons. Press the open button to keep the door open. Press the close button to make the door close right away.