Automata for high school
A Mechanical toy also known as Automata, uses hand-powered mechanisms to create cyclical motions that animate a scene. Students design and create toy machines with moving characters that symbolize abstract concepts and represent dynamic situations.
Mechanical toy design integrates a range of skills from art and craftsmanship to mechanics and mathematics. Students work in a small group to create, co-create or read a story and then make the characters and scenes come to life through a moving automata.
Building automata toy is a good example of integrating science and art with an activity. For learners, the narrative and decorative aspects are as important as the mechanical elements.
The students are guided to design and build their own automata using everyday material like corrugated sheet, sticks and straws. A mechanical toy consists of two parts: its top features and an underlying mechanical assembly. In the mechanical part, simple machine elements like cams, levers and linkages are used in a playful way. Features are brought to life with the help of paper figures, colors and other craft ideas.
This activity allows students to tinker with lots of things, guided by whim, imagination and curiosity. While tinkering, there are no instructions - but there are also no failures, no right or wrong ways of doing things. It's all about figuring out how things work and reworking them.
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