Enginuity and the Egg-a-Pult Competition

The Ironbridge Gorge Museums site gives details of events that are on. So, having seen what is on, our first port of call was just down the hill to the Coalport China Museum where we did the Bear Hunt for Snowy the Polar Bear, while waiting for the china painting workshop to start at 11 am. Two trinket boxes are now awaiting firing and will be sent through the post. Look here in a couple of weeks for the results.

In the afternoon we went to Little W's favourite place - Enginuity, which is next to the Museum of Iron in Coalbrookdale. It doesn't look like much from the outside...

...but inside it is an Aladdin's Cave of interactive exhibits.

Find out how a little ingenuity will let you pull a 10 ton locomotive or generate electricity from flowing water. Look at familiar objects with new eyes using the giant X ray machine, build an earthquake proof tower and challenge our robotic arm.

The model valley with its dams, canals and various water lifting devices keeps Little W amused for hours.

Here he is generating some electricity to be released through a choice of 8 devices, to illustrate how different machines have different power consumptions.

My favourite is number 8, the flying pigs.

Meanwhile, the girls took part in the Egg-a-Pult competition. For £1, you get a kit of materials to make a catapult for throwing eggs. There are various models on show to copy, if you want, or you can design your own from scratch. We chose to copy one that looked like it might work well. Here they are with their completed machine...

Then you get to try it out. After two practice goes you are given 5 eggs to propel at a target with holes - get them through the holes and you score points. Well, of course they don't use real eggs (which is a shame - you can just imagine the gooey sticky mess that would result), but use ping-pong balls. Here goes...

Result: Score 60 points and a prize of 1 cream egg each. And we got to keep our Egg-a-pult!

Enginuity and Rocket Making

With our second Family Passport got lat summer, we always visit at least one of the Ironbridge Museums when we're at The Barn. A big favourite for all of us, but especially for Little W, is Enginuity. As usual, he headed straight for Power Valley to play with the water and dams...

But we were there to take part in the special half-term activities...

Yes we were there to make and fire some rockets! They also had model aircraft on display, display flying, and a hand operated flight simulator...

Little W kept crashing, but Big Miss was a natural.

Then it was on to making the rockets. Firstly you decorate your paper, then wrap it round a tube, seal the edges and put a bung in the end. Here are the 4 rocketeers mid-construction...

Then you add fins to keep it flying in a straight line. Here is Little W ready to get his to fire.

It is done with compressed air. You have to pump it up yourself...

...then press the firing button...

Great rocket - right in the middle of the target!

A Shropshire Day Out

So here we are at The Barn. After coming here for nearly 2 years we have some favourite things to do. Already on Tuesday we had a Hungry Horse lunch and a visit to Enginuity. Then yesterday we had a well good day out...

Firstly we visited Wenlock Edge to admire the view...

Do you think Little W was feeling the cold wind at all? Then we carried on to Carding Mill Valley to climb up The Long Mynd. Here we are at the division of paths...

...where we turned left up to the Long Spout waterfall.

We saw plenty of sheep and little lambs...

...and even when we had our picnic we had a sheep in attendance...

Then it was on via a drive through Corve Dale to Dudmaston Hall. The banks in the grounds are great for roly-polys, and the little ones couldn't resist.

After touring the house we ended up in the old kitchen where they could all practise their drawing. Here's Little Miss in action...

My plan worked! It tired them out so much I had a very peaceful eveing to myself after they had gone of early to bed. Let's see if I can repeat the trick today. They are certainly struggling to get up this morning!

AAG Winter Social

I try not to write too much about my job here, but I had a really interesting day on Thursday last week. The Aspire Architects Group had a team-building away-day doing something completely different... We did a day of voluntary work at the Ironbridge Gorge Museums - a regular haunt for us when when the kids visit The Barn. We were at the Coalbrookdale site...

After an introductory talk, we set to work moving and repacking the museums' (Victorian) costume collection. While one team built new shelves and moved the boxes around, the rest of us learnt how to pack things to preserve them and were set to work. Here's my team with one of our first items - a ladies jacket...

We were a bit disappointed not to have any corsets to do, but we did get a pile of linen, a top hat and trilby alleged to have been owned by Captain Webb - a local man, famous for being the first person to swim the English Channel, some furs, tablecloths and a couple of banners for local Wesleyan Sunday Schools.

Well it was certainly a change from our usual line of work! And there was some satisfaction in being told we had done in one day what would otherwise have taken the staff about 18 months to complete. But then it was off with the gloves...

...to go and explore Enginuity...

... and then to enjoy a celebratory hog roast...

...at, and after which, copious amounts of beer were drunk. And I'm not going to say anything about the member of the team who managed to lock himslef out of his hotel room in the middle of the night wearing... no I really mustn't say.

You can see some more of my photos of the day here on Flickr.