When people think about currency, thoughts normally go towards paper bills and metal coins. However, the currency we have today has come a long way to reach where it's at now. We have it easy, our currency has numbers on it that tells us how much it is worth. When people started using currency, it could almost have been anything. Essentially it all started from trading goods for other goods. When I mentioned this project to a friend of mine, he told me about this African tribe, the Ashantis, that use little figurines that all weigh the same. One could tell the value of their possession by seeing how many figurines it took to be equivalent in weight.
My train of thought was a little scattered when I was trying to think of where to go with this project. To help myself, I tried starting from a simple jumping off point. When it comes to currency I automatically think about numbers. Certain objects of currency represent different values which in turn can be represented by a number. I instantly thought of the original counting machine, in essence the first calculator. An abacus, or a counting frame is a series of beads on different wires or sometimes wooden bars that can be moved from one side to the other to make simple arithmetic calculations. It is not a form of currency, but it was used by merchants and traders when they performed various transactions.
I really want to branch off from this point. Instead of having a heirarchy of beads that are all different, I want to have a group of similar beads that have different values because one has more parts than the other. I hope that makes sense, it would probably be easier to draw than to explain with words, but in essence it would be very similar the idea of an abacus.
Nice job - I think I understand your idea about the abacus- We can talk about is more throughly in class tomorrow. This could be a really great idea if you work equally on the presentation of the beads. What will hold them and will they be moveable?
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