1C DT Sliders and Levers

Lesson: Design and technology

Class: Year 1 - 1C Year: 2021 - 2022

Mechanisms - sliders and pivots 

We begaun our Dt unit by exploring a variety of books and cards that have moving parts. We had a discussion about what the books were, who they were aimed at, what they were for and how the parts moved. We discoved that sliders can move up and down or side to side and pivots can rotate and move in a curve. Once we had explored how the mechanisms worked, we had a go at making our own pivots and sliders.

First we created a pivot by cutting out the two parts of a pair of paper scissors and we placed them together using a split pin. The split pin allowed the two part to move in a curved manner enabling us to make our own pair of moving paper scissors. We then had a go at making a slider using card. For this we needed to decide the direction we wished our slider to move (up and down or side to side). We got a piece of card and cut a long strip from the side, then we udsed a hole punch to make some holes and folds then cut along the lines to create the 'slits' for the slider. This was not easy, but with practise, determination and a little help from our friends, we did it!

From this, we had to decide what mechanisms we would like to use to make a moving Christmas card. We then looked at different types of moving cards and then used some of the ideas to designed our own, but before we could actually make our card we needed to make a prototype just to make sure our ideas worked (All designers do this you know). We then used all of our knowledge and skills to make our very own moving cards! We looked carefully at our designs and prototypes to ensure that we made any necessary tweaks so that our finished product was exactly how we wanted it to be. Once completed, no card is complete without a bit of sparkle! So we added LOTS of glitter! Sorry!!