#57 The Chimer

Bourneville School invented 'The Chimer' for key number 57, which plays the note using strings and wheels.

Louie’s design reminds us of the kit we used when we first visited the schools before Christmas.  The kit contained some wooden boards with holes, some nuts and bolts, levers, string and other components with which the pupils made mechanisms to play a chime bar. Louie has shown this kit mounted on a table, to make a note on the piano chime, but the table itself is on wheels and must roll towards the piano before playing the note. After thinking of various options, we found a way to make this happen with the player operating a single rope. First the player pulls the bottom part of the rope to bring the table forwards until it hits a “stop” at the front of the track, at which point the rope pulls the lever to chime the note. Then the player pulls the top part of the rope to stop playing the note, and then pull the table backwards.  An interesting challenge in making the design work was to make sure that the rope is always the same length, wherever the table is. To stop the table falling sideways we’ve connected it with a slider to a side rail.