The six different types of simple machines are given below.

Inclined Plane: Inclined planes are used to raise, lift or roll heavy objects through their sloping plane surface that remains attached to the ground. When you go to the mall and use the cart to take your things from one floor to another, you may have seen a long ramp on which you can move your trolley to reach the above floor. These inclined ramps are inclined planes and are extremely helpful in lifting heavy objects without making much effort. Some other examples are conveyor belts, switchback roads, sidewalk ramps and more.
Wheel and Axle: In movies or your village, you must have seen the well from which people draw out water using the bucket that is holding on to a wheel situated on the top. You need to rotate the axle to let the wheel unfold the bucket rope, and hence the bucket moves down. Afterwards, the axle is again rotated in the reverse direction to bring the bucket up.
Pulley: This device is similar to the axle and wheel but has been simplified more by directly using the rope on the wheel as a mechanical advantage. Hence you have one side of the rope and can pull it through the wheel. Pulleys are extensively used in lifts, flag poles, lifting heavy objects and more.
Lever: This simple machine balances the effort and load and hinges on the fulcrum. If you have seen the see-saw, then you can visualise it easily. This mechanism is used to measure weights at shops where they put kilos on one side and things on the other side. The different orders of levers are FEL, LFE, LEF, ELF, where E is effort, L is load, and F is the fulcrum.
Wedge: A wedge is a simple machine that multiplies the force and helps in breaking things. For example, if you take a screw with two sides, one side is flat and used for hammering, while the other side is narrower and used to break into things. Thus when we apply the force on the flat surface, the whole force is concentrated at a single narrow point, making it break into things.
Screw: It is an inclined plane wrapped around a shaft that helps in drilling into things to hold two things together. Some common examples include car jack, spiral staircase, bolt, clamp and more. The screw converts the rotational motion into linear motion.

ICSE, Grade 6, Science

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