#3 Flying Football
Mechanism #3 named the flying football, was invented by the children of Robert Mellors Primary Academy in Nottingham, with assistance from the 88 Pianists team at the University of Nottingham.
This is fantastic design, which includes strings, levers and a flying football. We used the concept of the “flying football” to give us inspiration for the design, which consists of a hinged leg and football, pulled by a string.
The main challenge here was finding a way to incorporate the idea of a flying football into the mechanism, which was what stood out from this design. The pivoting leg provided a way to allow the football to fly!
The finger was specifically chosen to play this note by the composer, Martin Riley, when the 88 Pianists team determined that it would be able to play the note loudly, but fairly infrequently due to having to reload the system.
The main challenge here was finding a way to incorporate the idea of a flying football into the mechanism, which was what stood out from this design. The pivoting leg provided a way to allow the football to fly!
