Year 3 have had a great week using their creative skills to design and make a variety of mechanisms as part of our Design and Technology project. ‘Making it Move’!

They started off by exploring and making their own lever designs before moving on to making a wonderful Easter card with a slider mechanism (we hope you love your cards as much as they enjoyed making them!).

Finally, Year 3 learnt about how a cam mechanism works and by the end of the lesson were designing their very own cam mechanisms to make for a purpose (such as a toy). They learnt that cam mechanisms are used in many machines and mechanical toys to make parts move. They found out that the 3 main components of a cam mechanism is a cam wheel, axel (sometimes called a rod) and a follower. The axel is attached to the cam and when the axel is rotated the cam wheels move around. Then, because the follower in in contact with the cam wheel it makes the follower move by following the shape of the cam. We learnt that this changes the rotational movement of the cam and axel to an up and down movement for the follower.

Please enjoy the gallery of pictures below of the children in full design and make mode!

Well done, Year 3 – you did a fab job!