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Make: 'The Most Amazing Machine in the World' from the Design Museum, London
Instructions:
- Take one plain white box and a lot of imagination. This white box will be The Most Amazing Machine in the World and it's your job to design it. As the designer, you will need to consider the following:
- What does the machine do? For example, it could be a Cloud Chaser which stops rainy days, or a Super Telescope that allows you to see other countries, or even into the future.
- Ask yourself some questions: does my machine need buttons? Does my machine need dials? What do the buttons and dials do?
- Make a sketch of your machine
- Decorate the box to create your machine.
Materials:
- Imagination!
- A plain white box (you can either make this yourself from white card or buy one from an art shop.
- Scissors
- Felt pens
- Anything else that you find inspiring: pipecleaners, glitter, sequins, buttons...the list is endless…
P.S The Design Museum's Children's Art Day event: Sketch the City is on Sunday July 18, 2010.
Make: a Camera Obscura from Rufford Craft Centre, Newark, Nottinghamshire.
Instructions:
- Choose a room in your house with a pale coloured wall opposite a window. This experiment works best on a sunny day.
- Using card, bin-bags or tinfoil and black tape, completely block out all the light coming from the window(s).
- Use a hole punch to make one hole in a small piece of black card.
- Using a pair of scissors, cut a hole a little smaller than this piece of card in your blackout, and tape the card over, leaving just the small circular hole visible. Cover this hole with a little flap of black tape.
- Having made sure the room is completely lightproof, get your mates round and sit them on the floor. Switch the lights off and wait for five minutes to let you eyes adjust.
- Remove the tape flap. You will now be able to see a projected upside down image of the scene outside your room, with people walking across the ceiling, and clouds drifting across the wall!
- The device you have just made is called a camera obscura (Latin 'dark chamber') and was first constructed by Alhazen, an Iraqi mathematician , in the 10th century. It relies on the fact that light rays travel in straight lines, and by making the rays small (using a small hole) they pick out an image inside the room.
P.S. Rufford Craft Centre Children's Art Day event: Camera Obscura Drawing is on Sunday July 18, 2010, from 11am - 4pm and is a free drop in activity behind the Abbey.
Make: 'lifecycle' objects from firstsite, Colchester
Lifecycle is all about making, using and reusing objects.
- Think about the life cycle of the things in your bag or in your pocket. The life cycle of an object will start when the materials are created or found and may end with it on a rubbish dump, or you may use it for a long time.
- Artists and designers think about this too and reuse or recycle objects into new objects or new works of art. What could you turn your object into next?
- Have a look in your bag or pocket and choose an object to investigate…might be a pencil case, a book or a plastic juice bottle.
- Take something out of your bag now, put it in front of you and answer these questions to see where Lifecycle takes you.
- What are the materials used in making of your object? (Don't forget things like glue or thread that you might not be able to see) List them here.
- Do you think any of the materials are natural or are they made by people? Make a list with these titles Natural / People Made.
- Do you think anything is recycled in your object?
- Who do you think made the object? Draw them or it here.
- Did anyone design it? Draw the design if you can imagine it.
- Can you tell where it was made? Does it say 'Made in…………………..' (write down the name of the country or town).
- How did it get from that place to your bag? - Write or draw the journey it took and think about the transport it used.
- How many miles do you think it has travelled? Have a guess if you don't know.
- Now think about what you would turn it into next so that you can make the object have another life after you have finished using it. Draw and name the thing you have created.
Send a photo of your work to firstsite
Firstsite gallery would love to see what you have created and may even display it! Get in touch with them at firstsiteLearning@firstsite.uk.net and firstsite may display it.
P.S. firstsite's Children's Art Day event is Lifecycle, with artist Jevan Watkins Jones and it's on Saturday July 17, 2010, 11am -4pm and it's a drop in activity.
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