The Rider-Ericsson Engine Company was a company that made a special kind of engine called a hot air engine. You know how when you blow on your soup to cool it down, the soup gets cooler? Well, the hot air engine works in a similar way, but instead of cooling something, it uses hot air to make things move!
The engine has a special part called a piston that goes up and down inside a tube. The piston is like a big cylinder that fits really well inside the tube. When the engine is turned on, the hot air inside the tube expands and pushes the piston up. This makes the piston move to the top of the tube.
But how does the hot air get there in the first place? The engine has a special way of heating up the air. It has a little stove underneath the tube where the piston moves. This stove burns something called fuel, which makes it really hot. The hot stove heats up the air inside the tube and makes it expand, which pushes the piston up.
But why is it called a hot air engine? Well, after the hot air pushes the piston up, it needs a way to cool down so it can come back down again. The engine has another part called a cooling chamber that sits on top of the tube. When the piston moves up, it pushes some of the hot air into this chamber, which cools it down. Then, when the piston moves down again, it sucks in the cool air from the chamber, which helps it to go back down.
The Rider-Ericsson Engine Company was very good at making these hot air engines and they became really popular. People used them to do all sorts of things like pump water, run machines in factories, and even power small boats! These engines were great because they didn't need things like steam or electricity to work. They just needed hot air!
However, as time went on, other types of engines like steam engines and gasoline engines became more popular because they were able to do more work and were more efficient. So, the Rider-Ericsson Engine Company eventually stopped making hot air engines. But their engines were still very important because they helped to pave the way for other types of engines that we use today.