Title
Mobile
Description
Year 7 Modified Curriculum
Key Stage 3
Area Designing
Objectives
To introduce the students to the concept of balance by making a moving sculpture with shaped and coloured parts.
Equipment Required
MDF and other off cuts, thread, strips of timber and a range of woodworking tools and paint.
Richard Murray
Abbey Hill School Technology College
Plan
Each student is supplied with three strips of timber and has access to a supply of MDF offcuts and other odd shapes of different materials. Demonstrate by sketching on the board the different ways the students can string the strips together to form the skeleton of a mobile.
The scraps of materials provided may be sufficiently interesting to allow them to be used after being smoothed drilled and painted. However the students may wish to design their own. One of the simplest ways is to 'take a line for a walk' and then look for shapes in the loops thus formed. These can be transferred to the material and cut out and smoothed.
The way a part hangs should be considered too, maybe the big piece to the bottom looks best or the shape may be hung horizontally, the student should choose.
Colour may need to be added or the material e.g. acrylic/corriflute, may be self coloured.
The shapes will need drilling and painting and varnishing.
Once all the pieces are made the mobile may be 'strung' and tried out. The work will need balancing and further tests to see that the pieces do not hit each other and affect the operation of the mobile. Once this has been done the pieces may be fixed by a drop of glue or by drilling holes and tying the thread through them.
