STEM ENGAGEMENT
the problems posed; and that includes
designing a piece of music that includes
every note on the keyboard.
To do so, Riley got involved at an
early stage when the mechanisms were
selected; they nished the day marking
them out on the lecture theatre oor.
Recalls Allwood: “With Martin’s help, we
chose where the mechanisms would go
so that he had the most reliable ones
on certain notes for the basic harmony.
Broadly, the more reliable ones were on
white, and the less reliable ones on the
black.” An example of the latter was one
that bursts a balloon, inside of which
is a marble that rolls down a funnel
to eventually hit a lever. Exactly how
long the marble took to spiral down the
funnel was dif cult to predict. Still, Riley
celebrated some of the more unusual
ones by giving them their own solo.
Allwood, who is also the director of
the energy-ef ciency initiative called
Use Less, says that the project did
turn out to exemplify its values -- albeit
that took the team by surprise. He
concludes: “The experience of doing this
was incredibly ful lling to anyone who it
touched; whether child, teacher or parent.
It was a good illustration of a creative
community building project, with few
energy requirements. It demonstrates the
extraordinary power of human creativity;
All the keys
Allwood recalls: “When we had done the lesson plan, I guessed
that we would get a set of interesting mechanisms, but instead
we came back with 2,500 acts of theatre that were totally
compelling.” Here are all 88 (full details on www.is.gd/lakalo)
1 The Flying Rabbit
2 See Saw
3 Flying Football
4 Wire Hat!
5 Bow & Arrow
6 Cog and Hammer
7 Flying Superhero
8 The Hydraulic Key Pressuriser
9 Hot Wheels
10 The Flusher Pusher
11 The Key Player / Balloon and Balls
12 Car Down Tube
13 Spoon-O-Matic
14 Banana Gun
15 Stretchelator
16 Falling Finger
17 Pizza Racket
18 Air Pump
19 Press The Button / Sea Snake
20 The Puller
21 Watt Bolt NW39
22 Metal Hand
23 The Cat-O-Matic 3000
24 Rocket Launcher
25 Ping Pong Balls
26 The Metal Cog Thingie
27 Guinea Pig Run
28 The Mechanical See Saw Beanstalk
29 A Leap of Faith
30 Magni cent Mermaid Mechanism
31 Rainbow Unicorn Cat Spaghetti
32 Rock and Roll
33 The Mole
34 The Pop Hop
35 Pivot Play
36 Santa
37 The Crow
38 Extendable Arm
39 Rhino Eat Apple
40 Bike Conveyor
41 Hanzos Swirl Attacker 3.0
42 Peculiar Pencil
43 The Puppy Poppy
44 Giant Hamster Wheel
45 Chainsaw
46 I Can’t Think of a Name 2000 (Bicycle)
47 Flower Train Hits That
48 The Rolling Balls
49 The Wheel Machine
50 Hands on Air
51 Bicycle
52 The Lobster Cook
53 Punch Tube
54 Rock Star Hockey
55 The Invention
56 Wonderful Windmill
57 The Chimer
58 Shark Cannon
59 The Bike Wacker
60 Horse String
61 Ding Dropper
62 Axle Power
63 Washing Line
64 Ultra Awesome Toothbrush
65 Box Lever
66 Chicken Reindeer Penguin Banana Nugget
67 Nuts and Bolts
68 TNT
69 The Giraffe and the Car
70 The Monkey Machine
71 The Fantabulous Rainbow-Pooping Unicorn
72 Fishing Key
73 Piano Puller
74 How To Play a Piano Without Touching It
75 Let It Shine
76 The Mechanical Gymnast
77 The Fall of the Domino Wall!
78 Water Whirler!
79 The Piano Express
80 The Dorito Cannon
81 Rollercoaster Ride
82 Marble Key
83 Stairs
84 Hex Bug
85 Playing Machine
86 Giant Engineer Kit
87 The Triple Wrecking Ball
88 Newton’s Hit!
Sustain Pedal - The Tubalicious Invention
children have it and the rest forget.”
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27
28
29
30
31
Meatball See Saw
32
33
34
www.ied.org.uk 9
/lakalo)
/www.ied.org.uk