This term’s D.T. topic in Year 4 has been creating mechanisms that use a pulley. We chose to focus on animals for our product designs, with a design brief of making a realistic animal model that has a pulley that controls one or more body part’s movement. 

The children got busy doing lots of research of animals and sketching different designs for their own animal product, thinking carefully about which body parts could move and where the pulley would be inserted. When the children had whittled their design ideas down to their favourite and reasoned why this was the most effective, they got busy making! The children made an elaborate 3D shape net design, which was made with careful consideration to the animal’s body shape, colour and proportions. The children cut and folded this to make it free-standing and 3D, then used a bradawl to pierce the model and insert strips of wires measured carefully to fit their model. Once the wire was twisted and secured, the children tested and evaluated them for their realism and effectiveness. 

There were some incredible designs and very elaborate pulley systems being created, from the swishing wings of eagles, munching jaws of sharks to the flapping flippers of turtles! The children did a brilliant job and thoroughly enjoyed this term’s project!