How will your beast open its mouth?
The big task is to design and make an animal with a moving mouth from studying their own mouth and head movements and those of animals. The mechanisms used by the children are restricted to a cam and follower, a simple crank or a crank and slider.
These are reports on activities taken by schools around the country. You can download the activities as acrobat files from the resources section
Getting things in the right order makes all the difference! (May 2, 2007)
An account of making beasts and the lessons learnt for next time
Read the report
Automata from Argentina (April 10, 2006)
I've have been using the teacher support material available in the site in another project at school on Automata.
Read the report
Chewy beasts in Salford (March 8, 2005)
Mrs Walmsley and her Year 5 class at St.Joseph's, Ordsall, Salford, produced lots of colourful beasts. Read what she has to say ...
Read the report
This is how our beasts opened their mouths (October 25, 2002)
"The children in my class had lots of problems to solve as they developed their designs. Here are some typical examples.
Read the report
Mechanical toys at KS1 and KS2 (April 29, 2005)
Paul King, the advisory teacher for Cardiff, has worked closely with David Barlex on a number of occasions, in using the Nuffield DATA primary solutions pack for in service training.