At Raymont-Osman, we usually pride ourselves in the design and development of things which WORK ...
...however, after-school last week, was spent honing early engineering skills to build a so-called "useless machine".
Stripping wires, assembling screws, visualising nets, installing batteries, identifying parts and soldering (Daddy did the latter bit!) - all useful skills for engineers of the future! 👨👧👷♀️
The first "useless machines" were built in the 1930s by Italian artist, Bruno Munari - a third-generation Futurist. Seeking to counter the threats of a world under machine rule by building machines that were artistic and unproductive, Munari's version of the useless machine became famous in information theory as a box with a simple switch which, when turned "on", causes a hand or lever to appear from inside the box that switches the machine "off" before disappearing inside the box again".
Pointless but brilliant engineering to inspire little ones!
