The first home-made “toy” I remember being shown as a child was a spinning top made from a matchstick jammed into a lychee seed. I didn’t include it in my book because I didn’t want to include anything made from inaccessible materials, but I recently came up with the design in the video below which is so simple you can make it in a matter of seconds. I don’t know if I’m the first person to do this – other people have certainly made spinning tops from bottle lids, but… Read more Simple Spinning Top →
Catapults are fun! This “mini mangonel” is a really simple, safe design that was invented by my friend Jonathan Sanderson as part of his work for the University of Northumbria’s engineering outreach team, NUSTEM. I was delighted they allowed me to use this for Mr Shaha’s Marvellous Machines because it perfectly fitted in with my aim of having “machines” in the book which were easy to make and left lots of room for children to “tinker“, and develop them into something better for themselves. TOP TIP: If you don’t have… Read more Mini Mangonel →