the piano from seven metres away that
no-one has ever tried.
Majewski says: “One thing that
we noticed was that the kids were so
freaking excited by all of it. Even during
our introduction, where we explained that
we have this problem – we can’t t 88
people around a keyboard – immediately
there were hands in the air. They had
ideas before we had asked them.”
Continues Majewski: “We all agreed
that there was no way we could ever get
that level of creativity from a room of
adults. One of the ideas is that there’s a
unicorn doing a poo, and what comes out
is rainbows and sparkles. No adult would
say in a room full of others. The key
point is to take something that sounds
ridiculous, and perhaps turn into...well,
not a practical solution, exactly. But I
don’t think that you can get anywhere in
design engineering just doing things the
same as they have always been done.”
The 50-strong team gathered in
Cambridge to select 88 mechanisms,
over an intense, two-day session. Then
each team went away to make their
portion; for the Shef eld team, that was
six. The only hard rule was no electronics,
to make the whole theatre of the piece
was visible to the audience.
Says Majewski: “We were all
encouraged, and encouraged each other,
that the designs that we were
picking would be a spectacle.
Turning them into workable
mechanisms also involved an
element of creativity; how can we
create something that gives an
impression of the original design.”
Majewski explains that their
build strategy was to go simple on the
mechanisms, such as swing arms, gear
systems, dropping weights, but including
wild decoration to make the ideas come
to life. Each team returned to the school
for the children to design.
Allwood recalls: “The mechanism part
wasn’t easy. I ended up doing more than
thought after one of the universities pulled
out. Having leaned heavily on all of my
teams, I had to take on few myself. And I
really had to think about it; in some cases,
it took me a few iterations before I could
deliver it. Number 17 is a pizza racket. The
boy who drew that came up story: A boy
who eats a pepperoni pizza causes a door
to open and then his younger brother hits
a ball with his racket. The drawing clearly
illustrates that. So I had to make it. You
can’t not make it, because that’s what
design said.”
When asked if this was not a ludicrous
endeavour, he replies: “That’s part of the
Britishness of it. And that was what was
I think so overwhelming when the curtain
lifted. It was joyful. The thing that
really surprised me on that day
was that these big hard tough
professors around the world
watched with tears in eyes;
seeing so much childish
creativity was truly moving.”
But to reach that point,
the team had to make every one
of the mechanisms, store them, and
practice assembling the mechanisms, as
there was limited set-up time before the
rehearsal.
How they would actually be played
in the nal performance was another
question entirely. Webber had put Allwood
in touch with composer Martin Riley,
who also works with the conservatoire;
Allwood describes him as “absolutely
phenomenal in nding solutions” to all of
8 www.ied.org.uk
/www.ied.org.uk