Ideas develop when many people think about them

Have just finished the Draft project files for the PigBang vacuum bazookas for the Nottingham e-Learning Centres. (Should be available by end easter Holiday UK) To test the idea out with a different set of young people than I have used so far, I took three bazookas and all the bits to a Scout group in my area. Lots learned about running the project which is incorporated into the final draft... But also some amazing innovation.
The basic thing fired by PigBang is a piece of foil wrapped round a marble to give a flared hollow cone shape that fits nicely in the pipes. You can also use a Ferro Rocher chcocolate but inexplicably these always go missing when I leave the box open..
At the Scout session I demonstrated the foil and marble version, but also gave them plastic straws and some other bits. One innovative young thinker bundled the straws together into a very light but stiff cylinder, held it together with a couple of rubber bands and sleeved it all in foil.. With a marble on the end it became a superb test load in the bazooka.
I spoke to someone yesterday who wanted to know if Pigbang would be a kit project that you could explicitly follow stage by stage. I am personally against that but I do provide such instructions if required. The young Scout showed that being too prescriptive narrows peoples chances to experiment where for sure, they will sometimes get it wrong, but they also get it right as well... and in ways their teachers, leaders and consultants could not have predicted!

Why no photos?

There are few outcome photos on this blog because clients tend to keep them and they often have students in them for whom I do not have photo release forms. therefore you get a lot of Sketchup and flat graphics because they communicate the main ideas well without my competitors ripping the idea off after studying them with a magnifying glass!

But for fun, here is an image from a new set of films about higher level Sketchup skills. It includes a film on how to make, stage by stage, this lovely retro 'Space 1999' style calculator bangle..Groovy!

I have this idea...

Usually I am fortunate to work with clients who understand my more zany ideas, confident from my previous successes that the new ones, yet untested, will work. Sometimes though I have to prove it first!

This catapult is an example of just such an idea. I have designed it to be built from a single sheet of plywood and standard parts from any builders or large DIY shop.

I reckon it will throw a load equal to half a brick about 150 metres or more. Right now the main parts are marked out in permanent pen on a sheet of ply leaning against my house, awaiting a chance to saw them out and assemble the thing for testing! My hope is that when I have proved that it is economical, easy to build, effective and safe (How can an 11 foot catapult be officially safe?) then clients will let me run it with a whole year group as a day building or week long learning project..

Some say if you build it they will come, with an 11 foot catapult, you build it and they run!

Trial and Error

So here it is... An image from a pack for a client. Nottingham e-Learning centres have commissioned a Pilot pack of materials for their website to encourage greater traffic to a section. I have been putting this Pilot together for a few weeks on and off but it is based around a simple idea I saw elsewhere, a vacuum bazooka

As I have said before, it is not enough to see an idea in a book or article, you need to actually know how it works because as a teacher in a classroom you do not want to be fiddling with settings the first time through

That is where consultancy comes in. the Pilot pack will contain Photos, Films with titles, me doing a talking head about the project, 2 worksheets to get you started, a 5 page manual and proof that the thing works! When it is all uploaded you will have a kit to run the whole thing where you can combine my skills in experimentation and creativity with yours in class delivery of your own students, and we are all a winner.

The Internet is full of 'all you need to do is' text statements of supposedly wonderful projects, perhaps we should have an agreed listing of what class projects should contain so that there is a minimum standard, then we can leave behind all those awful online 'lesson plans' which for many subjects take ages to source the materials, trial the lesson and work out the bugs!