Basically mechanical toys, a typical piece of automata produces a surprising motion with only a small hand-crank or an initial input of energy. Once set in motion, automata sometimes engage gears or springs, pulleys or other simple machines, and they can be beautifully simple or extraordinarily complex.
Mechanical toys have been made for centuries. Automata offer a fun, cheap introduction to making for students and teachers alike. We tackled two projects during the workshop: cardboard automata and Agreeable Sheep.
The first project, guided by the Exploratorium’s great instructions, allows for endless creativity (and tinkering and improvements) and uses very basic recyclable and craft materials.
After carefully and iteratively manipulating our mechanisms and creations for the morning and early afternoon, the final products were awesome. Check out the gallery above! With automata on their minds, many took home the Agreeable Sheep project to do on their own time. As always, it was wonderful to have the time and space to work together and collaborate on new projects, refine old skills, and simply share our interests and knowledge.
Thank you to Lighthouse Community Charter School who graciously hosted our small group and to Jeannine Huffman of the SJCOE DaVinci Center who led the projects. We will hold our next Educators’ Workshop on April 27 on the topic of Arduino projects.
