Exciting Science at the Toy Museum

In February we Brighton Toy and Model Museum will be inviting all young scientists and engineers to take part in our little bit of the Brighton Science Festival. 

Design and Build High Speed Racers

We’ve done this kind of thing before, and we know it’s been a roaring success in the past. It was great fun for all involved and that’s why we were keen to get making fun science again. On Monday the twelfth of February we will be opening on a Monday especially to have our Balloon Car day. To be frank, it knocks spots off of Formula One in terms of creativity and competition. First you need to design and build your balloon car out of parts that have been taken from the most reliable sources of balloon car engineering: the recycling bin. Then, once your magnificent machine has been engineered and finely tuned, it’s time to race! 


Who’s got the biggest puff? Is it enough when your opponent’s car is lighter and nippier? Will it make the course, or will it veer off wildly and never make it to the finishing line? Will you go home carried shoulder high and lauded by all of Brighton? Or will you face a walk of shame? There’s only one way to find out…

Do You Want to be in the Movies?

Following the taught excitement of the balloon car races we’ll be taking the adrenalin down a notch with lessons in creating the moving image. 

You may think that movies started with the Lumiere brothers or maybe the magic lantern, but in reality there have been many different mechanical methods of making pictures appear to move.  Starting with simple thaumatropes, discs with a picture on each side that, when spun on a string, appeared to merge together. A more advanced method of creating movement was the phenakistoscope, a slotted disc which would spin on an axis, which would create the illusion of movement when viewed against a mirror. This in turn was superseded by the zoetrope, a device which can be viewed by several people at the same time. 

During this session, held on Friday, the sixteenth of February, we will be making all three of these examples. You’ll need to draw the frames that make up the action, create the right device for the job and then set the whole lot going. We’ll give you the resources and expertise needed to make these toys using our experience from having had fun making these things in the past. 

Admission to the museum will be at the usual price; Adult £6.50, child £4.00, concessions £5.50, family £14 (up to 2 adults and 3 children). Booking for these events is required as we will be using materials that we don’t usually keep in the museum and we need to know how many to expect to supply accordingly. You can book by calling in advance on 01273 749494 

For all booking information, our location etc. just go to our facebook events page for the Balloon Car Race or the Thaumatropes, Phenakistoscopes and Zoetropes. Or why not come to both? Fun and excitement is a cert.

Zip Down to Brighton For Thrills and Excitement!

The latest tourist attraction is taking flight in Brighton!

Design courtesy of @BrightonZip

Leaping!

Now, we thought that a zip wire along the seafront was a gag, rumour like the waterslides we read about and the fast lanes on Oxford Street, a fun idea that would never happen. But we were wrong! Walking past the bottom of The Stein your intrepid correspondent saw the tower through the mist and murk of a June afternoon.

The tower appears to be completed, and it must have gone up in a matter of only a few days at the most as I had been in the area the previous week and seen nothing but the workmen clearing up the last of the Brighton Wheel, which has trundled on to pastures new. But now there is a tower, and soon to be a landing pad adjacent to the Steve Ovett statue some 300 metres along the seafront.

It’s great seeing so many new and exciting adventures opening up in Brighton. I must admit, I had become used to the Wheel and was rather disappointed to see it go. The i360 has garnered a lot of attention and different points of view. Some love it while others prefer to scoff. The revamped Volks Railway will be re-opening soon too, with its new visitor centre, refreshed rolling stock and conservation workshop at Peter Pan Playground. It does seem funny, walking down to the Marina in summer and not having the trains trundling by, making their incongruent ghost-train like wails!

Brighton Zip, it is said, will be open from 10am until 11pm all year round. While we can see a ride

Landing!

being fun and exciting on a summer’s afternoon, we’re a little more dubious about how we feel about going down in a gale in the depths of a winter’s night!

The spiral staircase leading to a zip wire isn’t an altogether new idea. We found pictures of a similar amusement that was installed in Gorki Park in the 1930s. And we were shocked at how much fun, and ridiculously dangerous it looked! Russian thrill seekers didn’t so much ‘zip’ down the line though, they leapt from the top of the tower in a semi-functioning parachute which was directed to the landing point, and prevented from blowing away, by a line. The tower also had a helter-skelter to slide back down on for people who got to the observation deck and decided that they didn’t quite fancy leaping from the top of a spiraling column, notwithstanding the parachute they were equipped with.

I’m looking forward to the opening of the Brighton Zip very much and can’t wait to go on it!