Hello I'm Nathan Bazley..... welcome to our special look at Technology in Practice. Around 75 years ago one of the most recognisable Australian icons was completed- the Sydney Harbour Bridge and as Sarah found out - it was certainly built to last.

Sydney Harbour Bridge
Sarah Larsen, reporter

SARAH LARSEN, REPORTER: When people think of Australia one of the things they think of is the Sydney Harbour Bridge ... it's on postcards, in paintings, it even stars in movies.

It's such an icon that more than 1 point 8 million people have climbed it. And when you stand on top you really understand what a huge job it was to build.

It takes three and a half hours to climb. When you get there you're a hundred and thirty two metres above the harbour

Even if you have a fear of heights, you can feel pretty safe on top of the bridge with all this gear. But back when it was being built it was a lot more dangerous.

CLIFFORD ANNAN: Particularly in high winds, you had to watch yourself. There was a little blow and you're gone and if it was raining your wouldn't work of course and down we'd come.'

Clifford Annan was one of 1400 workers who spent 8 years building the bridge

CLIFFORD ANNAN: They had to balance on girders way above the harbour, cooking rivets in vats of boiling oil and driving them into the steel.

It was tough work and 16 people died in accidents.

But most workers were happy to have a job because when construction began in 1926 many Australians were out of work.

The top arch was built first, starting from the outside. Strong steel cables helped to hold the sides in place.

Narrator, Bridge of Our Dreams (ABC 1988): It was a tense moment when the two halves of the bridge, now dwarfing cicular quay below, were about to be joined.

Once the two halves of the arches were holding each other up, work started on the road below

When that was finished it was tested with 95 steam engines.

Sydney finally had its bridge and many locals thought it was the greatest in the world and in a way, they were right - it is the biggest steel arch bridge in the world - but its not the longest.

A year before Sydney's bridge was finished the Bayonne Bridge in the United States was built.

The rumour is the Americans added a few extra metres, after plans for Sydney's bridge were finalised, just to make sure theirs was longer.

Whatever the arguments about size, the Harbour Bridge now plays an enormous part in the daily life of Sydneysiders.

It's still the main way over the harbour, carrying 160,000 cars a day, although there is now a tunnel underneath that takes 75,000 cars.

And whenever there's a need for a celebration, the bridge they nickname the coathanger is the place to be!

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Panama Canal
Sean Maynard, reporter

INTRO: Now when you think of all the man-made marvels built throughout the centuries there are not many bigger than the Panama Canal. It cuts across an entire country and work was so difficult it took 30 years to complete. The problem is that ships are now finding it too squeezy and it might be time to get the shovels out again.


SEAN MAYNARD, REPORTER: Captain Gilbert Blackwood is a ship's pilot. His job is to guide ships through what's been called one of the wonders of the Industrial World, the Panama Canal.

This massive waterway splits North and South America, acting like a highway for ships travelling from Europe to Asia.

By taking the short cut through the canal ships save a week of sailing around the bottom of South America.

The canal runs for 80 kilometres through the small country of Panama in Central America. Panama is about a third of the size of Victoria with a population of 3 million.

When the Panama Canal was built a hundred years ago it was a huge project; thousands of workers used shovels and dredges to cut through jungles, hills and swamps.

As if their job wasn't hard enough, they had to contend with deadly tropical diseases, like malaria and yellow fever, at least 20,000 people died in those early years.

Part of the reason why the Panama Canal was so difficult to build is that its actually above sea level, so ships have to be lifted up to travel through.

This is done with a series of what are called locks. Using gravity, lock chambers are filled with water, raising a ship by as much as 26 metres. A gate is then opened and the ship can sail on.

Electric locomotives are used to drag the ships though. 42 ships travel through the canal in a day taking about 9 hours for the whole trip.

But after saving ships owners millions of dollars over the years, the Panama Canal is now facing a major problem: ships are getting too big.

Ships are much longer and wider that they were a hundred years ago and they're getting bigger all the time.

Some oil tankers and container carriers already don't fit in the canal and many of those that do squeeze in with about 60 centimetres to spare, making the job of pilots like Captain Blackwood extremely difficult.

So now the Panama Canal Authority wants to make the canal wider and deeper but that's going to be expensive ... 6 billion dollars in fact.

For a small country like Panama they're worried they won't make enough money to make it worth while, plus there are also worries that it will affect the environment and small farmers on the edge of the canal.

But most Panamanian people are behind the project. In October last year the country had a referendum. Seventy-seven per cent said they wanted a wider canal After all, it will create a lot of jobs for Panamanians. And if the work isn't done, ships will have to find another route.

So it looks like one of the wonders of the industrial world will have another lease on life.

And in just eight years we could see the completion of one of the biggest engineering projects of the new century.

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Garuda Investigation
Annabelle Homer, reporter

INTRO: Now to an Australian invention that only comes in handy after an emergency - it's called a black box. It helps investigators work out what went wrong in a plane crash. But the first thing Annabelle found out is it's not actually black.

ANNABELLE HOMER, REPORTER: Around three million people board planes everyday, they're a big part of our lives. So when something goes wrong, people get worried. Everyone wants to know what happened and why as soon as possible.

Within hours of an accident involving a passenger jet, experts are flown in to investigate, sometimes from around the world. They begin a detective job as big as anything you'd see on television. Every piece of the plane is collected and put back together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Once a plane is reconstructed, investigators look for clues, signs of a mechanical or structural fault. They also analyse what's inside this metal box.

All commercial planes in the world have them - and they're located in the rear of the plane where they're more likely to survive a crash.

It might be orange, but it's called a black box.

ANNABELLE HOMER, REPORTER There are two of these in each aircraft. One is a flight data recorder - it stores information coming from the aircraft's instruments including how fast it's travelling, how high it is, and anything else the pilot operates from the cockpit.

The other is a cockpit voice recorder.

John Roberts from the South Australian Aviation Museum is an expert and knows more:

JOHN ROBERTS, MUSEUM EXPERT: Annabelle, this is the inside of the black box, this here actually drives a very fine wire to record all the information that the pilot will say and also records the information from the aircraft.

And sometimes the black box can record up to 2 hours of voice before a crash.

ANNABELLE HOMER, REPORTER: It's really heavy - that's because the black box is made very strong to survive a plane crash.

The box can cope with an impact force equal to 3400 times its weight, survive a fire for one hour and it's also waterproof just in case the plane crashes into the ocean. And it's painted orange not black so it can be found easily.

The black box was invented by an Australian, Doctor David Warren, back in the 1950's.

At first no one was interested. Pilots didn't like the idea of someone 'spying on them'.

But the British did like the idea and helped develop it.

And after a mystery plane crash in Queensland in 1960, Australia became the first country to make black boxes compulsory, now all commercial flights have them.

When investigators do find out what caused a crash, all the airlines are told. They might have to replace faulty parts or change the way pilots operate.

But it's all aimed at making flying safer and preventing accidents like this one in the future.
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Broadband
Sarah Larsen, reporter

INTRO: Our final story today is about computers - they're fantastic fun but they can also be frustrating. You sometimes have to sit around for ages waiting for a download to happen. Well some people say we shouldn't have to, and that new technology should make everything instantaneous. Sarah has been looking for a cure for the broadband blues

SARAH LARSEN, REPORTER: They play with perfect timing and harmony, but these two musicians are about 25 kilometres away from each other. There's no delay it's high definition in real time.

James Tizard is watching a demonstration of something called Sabrenet, a new, ultrafast broadband set up between some schools and universities

JAMES TIZARD, SABRENET: It's 40,000 times quicker than what you use at home; the internet of the future.

SARAH LARSEN, REPORTER: This is Sabrenet's secret weapon. It's a fibre optic cable and it's made up of bundles of glass fibres. Each fibre is much thinner than a human hair but it can carry a huge amount of information.

JAMES TIZARD, SABRENET: These are so powerful that if everyone in the world made a phone call to everyone else in the world these cables would be able to handle that easily.

SARAH LARSEN, REPORTER: But don't expect to plug into this sort of broadband any time soon.

Some other countries have pretty advanced fibre optic networks, but in Australia there aren't many available to the public.

Most of our broadband still runs through old-fashioned copper wires, which can't handle anywhere near as much information.

And outside of big cities it can be hard to get any sort of broadband without a satellite dish.

Many people say that's just not good enough.

KID: Our Internet is really slow. It takes ages to do anything. Overseas it's heaps faster.

KID: The people that I speak to online overseas tell me how fast their downloads are and how cheap it is and that really annoys me.

SARAH LARSEN, REPORTER: In the past few years Internet use has just exploded. We expect to do more complicated things, more often and faster.

You can even watch TV shows like BTN online. But if you've ever had to wait for a file to download, or watch slow, jerky vision, then you'll know how annoying a slow internet connection can be

It can be worse than annoying.

Some experts say the whole country will suffer if our broadband doesn't get faster

That's because our businesses and scientists won't be able to compete with other countries.

It seems most people agree something needs to be done.

So why the talking?

They want help from the government and promises that they will get their fair share of the profits and until that happens they say they're not going to start.

So if you're getting depressed about your downloads it's still not clear what's going to happen. But one thing is certain: there's bound to be a lot more arguing.