#42 Peculiar Pencil

This invention from Cherry Hinton Primary School in Cambridge and Pleasant Street Primary School in a combination of two interesting designs. The first uses a pencil as the main body of the finger to reach the piano and the second uses a chain system to actually play the note.

Dennis’ design shows a stone on a rope moving around a pulley to play the note.  We liked this idea for the mechanism, but thought it needed some more decoration, so combined it with Tariq’s terrific picture of the “Peculiar Pencil”. We’ve made the pencil with three pieces of plywood, hinged together so we can fold it up to move it more easily and we’ll soon go back to Cherry Hinton school to ask for their help to paint it. We’ve developed Dennis idea from having a stone on a string, to having a small set of levers attached to the pulley wheel. We think this will help the player play the note more reliably.